We all have a reason to support the Canadian Breast Cancer CIBC Run For The Cure

I am thrilled to be one of the blog ambassadors for this year’s Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run For The Cure. My family and I will be running the 1K in Toronto on October 5. Here’s why.

I am not a breast cancer survivor. Nor is my mother or either of my grandmothers. I’m probably what you’d call “low risk” (although who can ever say).

But as a 35 year old woman, I think my risk is really quite high. I have already lost one aunt to cancer. Another has survived breast cancer but at great expense to her general health and well being. My husband, too, has lost an aunt to cancer and has another aunt who has survived breast cancer. His paternal grandmother died from breast cancer before he was even born.

So, yes, I’m at great risk of losing even more aunts; of watching cousins and sisters fight for their lives. As I get older, more and more friends breathe in sharply to steel themselves before going in for their regular mammogram. For some, it’s only a matter of time before they get the news they’ve been dreading for years. For others still, it will come as a great shock.

If one in nine Canadian women get breast cancer, we are all, men and women alike, at great risk of loss. Aunts and grandmothers, cousins and friends, sisters and wives. Daughters.

The women who have faced breast cancer are our inspiration, but our daughters are the real reason we run. We run to raise money for the future of breast cancer research. We run so that one day the chances of getting breast cancer will be lower and the odds of beating it will be much, much higher.

I run for them.

 

 

 

 

Who do you run for? It’s not too late to register! Your participation fee is waived if you commit to raising as little as $150.

Or simply donate to support our team. Every little bit helps.

This is the first of four posts I’m publishing in my role as a blog ambassador for this year’s  Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run For The Cure.