A Few Komen Moments

We had an amazing morning at Komen for the Cure, San Fran, 2010. There were so many highlights, so many touching moments....to capture the true feeling of the morning in pictures or words would be impossible.
I spent some time on Saturday talking with the girls about cancer. They know what cancer is as their Grandmother has dealt with breast cancer for the past few years. As far as knowing how many women's lives will be touched by breast cancer (and mens for that matter), what the treatments are like, why they would be seeing some ladies without hair, what the signs on peoples backs were all about, that breast cancer has a 98% survival rate....those sorts of things we hadn't talked about before. They had a lot of questions about my friend Nancy while making signs for her. How did I know her, where does she live, why is her hair different in every picture, how does she decide which wig to wear everyday.....typical 8 and 6 year old questions. We talked about these things so that they would understand more about what the event was about, and so that they wouldn't be shocked to see all different types of women, all at different stages in their journey's with cancer. I wanted them to know that every name on someones back was a person, a person who has dealt with cancer, and that all the people running and walking had been touched by those peoples journeys, strength and courage.
One of the moment of the morning that I think effected me the most was the parade of survivors. They started with bringing on stage the women who had been diagnosed under the age of 40, then those who had been in remission for under 1 year, then 5 years, 10, 20, and 30 years. Some had survived breast cancer more than once. Some were much younger then me. Then they played Melissa Ethridge's I Run For Life. This song and I have a history as I had heard it for the first time the day after Komen For the Cure last year. I cannot hear this song without crying, so you can imagine what happened in this setting, looking up at all these amazing women, who were also crying.
When I walked back over to find our kids who were playing at the Pottery barn tent, I found them playing in the little kitchen area. They were playing with a little girl, maybe 2, who's shirt said 'My mom is a 2x Breast Cancer survivor'.
Then there was a speaker on stage who was speaking about how it could be any of us, at any point in our life, when we least expect it. This again, got the water works going. While the kids knew we were there as a way of showing support for my friend, they did not know that earlier this month I had my own scare. It was a normal day, we had done our long run, came home, I was about to get in the shower and that is when I found it. Not that it was hiding, it is actually quite large and visible from the outside. Brian came in the room to tell me about something on TV and although I was looking at him, I didn't respond to what he had said, and he knew something was wrong. We have wonderful Dr's here, and I was in the office by 2 the next day, and having a mammogram and ultrasound w/in 5 days of finding it. In what may have been the longest 5 days in history, you have a lot of time to think about things, what could possibly be lying ahead of you, how you will chose to handle it. I have the utmost respect for anyone who has heard anything other than "your scans are clear, I see nothing that looks cancerous or suspicious" after finding a lump and having it looked at. That is what I heard that day, and in the letter I received at home the next week.
This run will always have a special place in my heart. As I said, there were many moments that stand out, here are a few, and the rest, plus a video of the Survivors Ceremony are on our photo site.

And this -