The San Francisco 3-Day, September 9th-11th, 2011

Over the weekend I participated in my second Susan G. Komen 3-Day event and I walked 60 miles over 3 days to help raise awareness and money for breast cancer.

It was hard.

Physically it was challenging.

Me on Day 3 about to walk over the Golden Gate Bridge

Emotionally it was both heart wrenching and inspiring.

Walking 60 miles may not sound difficult – especially when you are doing it with friends and the mood alternates from moving and inspirational to a total party.  But when you hit mile 12 and still have 8 more to go and the bottoms of your feet hurt, like really, really, hurt, it’s hard.

But you have to keep going because you can, and there are others around you that can’t… because they are having surgery, or are in the middle of chemo or… because they are no longer with us.

Because of breast cancer.

So you put one foot in front of another and you walk.

Maybe slower than you did when you set out at 6AM but you keep walking with the goal in mind: not to walk 60 miles but to put an end to breast cancer.

So that’s what I did.

Tears: It’s Alright to Cry

My brother and the family came out to support us.

I cried a lot this past weekend.

A lot.

There were silent tears streaming down my face in the taxi on the way to Opening Ceremony as I thanked my incredible mother-in-law and sister-in-law for agreeing to do this for me.

There was the surprise cry that came when I saw my little brother waiting on the docks to cheer me on.

On Sunday I cried as we walked in silence to remember the anniversary of September 11th and I remembered Gary Koecheler and his family and all those the heroes that lost their lives that day.

And the weepy cry at Closing Ceremonies when all I could think of was how sad I was that my own mother was not standing in the Survivors Circle.

In between, there were also tears of laughter as I walked with my new amazing friend Rachael and my amazing family. The conversation went from types of lube to best parenting practices.  Yep, we covered it all.

It felt good to cry. To laugh. To lean on others and to keep walking.

Team Maidens for Mammograms and Margaritas

Maidens for Mammograms and Margaritas

Susan

My mother-in-law and my mom share the same name: Susan. They also share a special place in my heart as two women that I proudly call “Mom.” They were great friends and I know Susan misses her very much. She has always been the sole grandmother and has always respected the responsibility that role comes with. She’s always trying to find ways to talk about my mom and keep her memory alive with my kids. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.

Without hesitation Susan signed up to walk again with me this year after she walked in 2009 with our cousin Audrey.  Once again, she was the energizer bunny, walking along, never complaining and always looking ahead.  I’m so honored that she agreed to do this again with me and so proud that we can say we’ve done 2 together. Ready for the next one Mom?

Victoria

My sister-in-law is an athlete. I used to be an athlete and in my head I still think I am.

Victoria & Sara: Breast Friends

But I’m not.  Alex pointed this out to me the other day. I’m not in high school soccer any more.

Anyway, when I asked my sister-in-law if she would do the 3-Day with me she immediately said yes. Then she realized she would need to seriously plan around her 2 small children to make this work. And she did. Without complaining or fussing she made it work. She trained for this and for her half-marathon and she raised the money.

There’s something about sisters that I truly appreciate now that Victoria and I are just that, sisters.

They always have your back.

And when I would be silently crying at something over the 3-Day, instinctively she knew, and she would put an arm around me from behind and give me a squeeze. I’m so grateful that she did this with me and hopefully will do others going forward.

Oh and I mentioned that athlete thing because even Victoria said this walk was hard! She admitted that at first she thought walking was going to be easy but she had a new found respect for the event by the end of Day 1. But she’s the athlete because she’s going to run a half-marathon in a few weeks. You go girl!

Rachael

So, I’m not even sure how this happened but thanks to blogging, twitter and facebook I connected with Rachael from Happy MommyBlog. She posted somewhere that she was going to do the 3-Day in SF solo and I pounced. She just HAD to join our team: Maidens for Mammograms and Margaritas!

Personally, I needed a tentmate for camping at night and she seemed awesome. It was weird to send a message that basically said: “So… hi,… um… you don’t know me but do you want to live with me for 3-Days?” 

Thank goodness she agreed because we were destined to meet.

Rachael fits in my life like a perfect pair of jeans. I don’t know what that means, but it’s true. She’s true blue, comfy to be around and we all loved her. You know like that awesome pair of jeans you own? Plus she let me cry without making me feel weird.

She’s one in a million that girl. You all need to be her friend, immediately. I’m still adjusting to life without her 24/7. I don’t think I like it very much and am going to suggest that we all move down the street from one another!

Happy Rachael from HappyMommyBlog

Our Goals

To sum up, we made it our goal to walk 60 miles and to raise awareness for breast cancer.

We did that.

In order to do the 3-Day you are supposed to raise a minimum of $2,300 per walker. Maidens for Mammograms and Margaritas set a goal of $10,000 and we BLEW IT OUT OF THE WATER!

I’m extremely proud to say our team has raised over $17,000!!!

I have to give a very special thank you to Janice our team member that flew all the way in from Michigan to walk with our team and then promptly came down with one of the worst flus I’ve ever heard of. She wasn’t able to walk with us those three days but she trained hard and raised a terrific amount of money for the cause. I am so looking forward to doing this with her next time.

Giving Thanks

The Amazing Men

They took care of little mouths and butts.  They drove some of us to starting points and picked us back up. They took kids to soccer games, sometimes to the wrong fields, but they got them there anyway.

They are amazing and awesome.

Thank you to my awesome brother Geoff who came and gave me that special bear hug where we remembered our mom together. It meant the world to me to share that with him.

To my own amazing Alex, who not only took care of the kiddos but sent me inspirational videos of them and brought them to the cheering stations. I love you.

Donors and Supporters

A special thank you to all of you who gave so generously so that our team could do this walk. The +$17K raised will go towards ending the fight against breast cancer.

Thank you to all of you who wrote messages of encouragement leading up to and all through the 3-Day.

A special thank you to Wendy at Wendy Will Blog who generously shared her personal story with breast cancer so that I could share with you one of the many heroes I was proud to walk in honor of.

Thank you to all the people that added their names to our team shirts. We were so honored to walk 60 miles in their name and we look forward to doing it again next year!

What’s Next?

So I’ve been taking names and am keeping a list.  Many of you have said you’re in for next year.

San Francisco? Michigan?

Let’s do this folks! I can’t wait.

In the meantime, you can expect to hear a lot more from me about breast cancer awareness as we head into Breast Cancer Awareness month in October.

Support Periwinkle Papillon and
Lee National Denim Day in their campaign to fight breast cancer.

For example, I’m going to be teaming up with Lee Jeans for their Denim Day drive.  Lee Jeans has asked me to compete in a little friendly competition against some other bloggers all for a good cause. We are going to try to see who can get the most teammates to a) commit to wear denim and 2) pledge the cost of their jeans (any jeans) on October 7th.   Leading up to this, I’m going to be hosting a couple of great giveaways so be sure to join the Periwinkle Papillon team to show your support!

More about that later…

So What Now????

Get those Mammies Grammed!

Go Touch Yourself!

Lots of love,

Sara

Here are all my pictures – click on them to view larger.

The post My 2011 Susan G. Komen San Francisco 3-Day appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.

By the time you are reading this, I will be well on my way to walking in my second Susan G. Komen 3-Day. 60 Miles to raise awareness and funding to end breast cancer. I’m so excited typing this I can barely sit still! 

Today I have the first of what I hope are many very special posts… On the back of our team shirts, are over 50 names. Wendy’s is one of them.

In addition to being an awesome writer and mother, Wendy is also a breast cancer survivor and advocate.  

I knew I wanted to share her story with you as I hope to share many of the stories of the amazing women that make up the back our team shirts. Wendy’s is particularly important to me because she could help me know what it must have been like as a mother to have received that diagnoses, like my own mother did.

So I asked her to write a guest post and I’m truly honored that she agreed. Thank you so very much Wendy for sharing your beautiful post. 

xo

Sara

How has my breast cancer diagnosis changed you as a mother?

The paper crinkled beneath me as both the nurse and doctor examined the images of the tumor on the computer monitor. My pale husband hovered in the background. The doctor glided the ultrasound wand over my left breast and armpit searching for the best spot to insert the aspiration needle so to grab tumor cells for a biopsy.

Tears were falling down the sides of my face and dripping onto the paper. The nurse, clearly trying to distract me, asked, “How old is your little girl?” The inside of my nose burned and the lump in my throat barely let me get out “almost nine months.” She continued, “What’s her name?” Floodgates. I plead “Please, I’d rather not talk about her right now.”

The two questions that consumed me the day of my diagnosis were 1) what did I do to deserve this and 2) who will be a mother to my daughter?

My breast cancer diagnosis blindsided me and it has forever changed me as a person and as a mother.

Breast cancer has completely altered what I thought my life would be like today. It has only allowed me one biological child stealing my ovaries and leaving me menopausal. It has left me scarred and tattooed, achy and with bone loss. It has ruined every photo for a good year when I had to wear a headscarf or a hat. It has left me depressed and discouraged.

But worst of all, it has left me terrified.

The thought of breast cancer metastasis scares the crap out of me. The one silver lining was that my daugher was too young to remember the devastating toll the treatment took on me. But, I worry. She may not be old enough now to fully understand what’s happening if it were to come back but she’d definitely know something was wrong. I can’t bear to see that fear in my child’s face.

It scares me because I don’t know what caused my cancer. Was it something I did, was exposed to, ate, inhaled, stood next to, contracted, or born with? I don’t carry the BRCA gene mutation but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some unknown and undiscovered mutation that she may potentially have too. Without knowing what caused mine worries me that I can’t protect her from it.

It scares me that she will one day think she was the cause of my cancer. I don’t ever want her thinking that the abundant hormones while pregnant with her may have encouraged the cancer growth.

It scares me that she will worry about her own health for the rest of her life. too At this point, she’ll have to start mammography tests at age 23 – a whole ten years before I was diagnosed. Twenty-three year olds should be worried about having fun. Not mammograms.

The physical damage cancer has caused me is nothing compared to the ever-present fear it instills as a mother.

I went back into the doctor’s office the day following my diagnosis. That same nurse who tried comforting me the day before asked how I was doing. I smiled. Obviously, I wasn’t great but I was ready for a fight and I replied, “No more tears today, I promise.”

I refuse to let cancer win and I refuse to let it get the best of my family or me.

Wendy after her chemo and her gorgeous family

Wendy at the Race For The Cure with her beautiful daughter

Please Wendy some comment love and go follow her amazing blog Wendy Will Blog and also on Twitter

The post Portraits in Pink: Wendy Will Blog appeared first on Periwinkle Papillon.