I just wanted to take a moment to address why Runners Cure Cancer is important to me.
I have had a lot of people in my life who have or have had cancer. Just to name a few, I lost one uncle to prostate cancer, another to throat cancer. My father in law battled kidney cancer. A friend was recently diagnosed with leukemia. My best friend has breast cancer and she's the one I'm really going to focus on in this post.
I feel like I can share this post because she has been very outspoken about her cancer and how it has changed her life.
When she was diagnosed she was in her early thirties with 2 very young boys and a husband who lost his mom to cancer. She was first diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer into the lymph nodes. She was encouraged to have a double mastectomy in an attempt to keep the cancer from coming back. When she had her surgery they also removed the affected lymph nodes.
As far as she knew breast cancer didn't run in her family. Her parents are divorced and she's not very close to her dad's side so she wouldn't have known that she in fact did have an aunt who had breast cancer.
She went through treatments including chemotherapy and radiation. She lost her hair and her finger and toenails. She lost a little bit of who she was.
During that time she also lost her car due to increasing hospital bills, she lost her job due to medical restrictions and they lost the home they built their family in to foreclosure.
So not only was she battling this horrible disease, but she was also dealing with all of this other stressful stuff on top of it. Friends and family helped out as much as they could to help her and her family get back on their feet and they did.
Then tragedy struck again. About a year after she'd completed her treatments and been declared cancer free the doctors found something on her regular scan. The cancer had spread to her lungs and liver. The cancer is estrogen driven so the first plan was to stop the production of estrogen in her body. After a surgery to remove her ovaries she was thrown into premature menopause with no hormone replacement. Any woman who has gone through menopause will tell you that weight gain goes with the territory. For my friend, who was always tiny, this was just another way she was losing herself to the cancer.
She has been on chemo ever since she was re-diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer. They have to switch it out for a different kind whenever it stops working and eventually she will run out of chemo options.
She struggles to breath especially when it's hot and humid or very cold. She has pain in her liver and her bones and joints ache constantly due to the damage the chemo has done.
Recently she found out that her cancer has spread once again. It is now in one of her vertebra. She had to start radiation again. The radiation burned her throat so badly that it bled and she was in unbearable pain and she had to stop the treatment early. We can only hope that the treatment she was able to do had some impact on the tumor on her spine.
Through all of this and all of the internal struggles she has always remained positive. She has a great team of doctors working on her case. Trying traditional and experimental treatments on her to keep her body fighting. Her faith is strong, and her faith in her doctors and the research being done is just as strong. She fights the battle to stay alive every single day. She also works hard to spread the word about the amazing work our hospitals right here in Central Wisconsin are doing to keep up the fight against cancer. She is a spokesperson at breast cancer events, she walks in the walks, she raises funds and she helps other cancer patients whenever possible.
This is why Runners Cure Cancer is so important to me.
Register today to participate in Runners Cure Cancer (run or walk) on September 30th at Bull Falls Brewery in Wausau. Text RUN to 39327 to register right from your phone or visit http://wifc.com/runners-cure-cancer/.
