Race for the Cure

Today I ran in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. I did this for 2 reasons: it is a worthy cause and I am glad to give money to help fund breast cancer research, and to prove that I could run 3.1 miles. I am a terrible runner, but by golly, I did it. Ladies pushing double strollers passed me, 8 year olds passed me, people with oxygen tanks passed me, but who cares. I did it. And I met a nice person who had about the same pace as I, so I ran with her, since I never did see the people I knew who were running it. Ruth has survived two breast cancer occurrences. She asked me if I had anyone with breast cancer, someone I was running for. I told her my mom survived breast cancer, but some years later she did not survive lung cancer. As I drove home I was thinking about all the women I know who have been affected by breast cancer. My good friend Jane died in 1992, when her cancer spread to her bones. My high school classmate Peggy died a few weeks ago, after her breast cancer metastisized. I can name many women who have been treated for breast cancer, seemingly successfully, but they get up every morning and remember that it could come back anytime. You can probably name a bunch of women in the same situation.

I wonder what it will take to cure breast and all the other cancers that plague us? Who hasn't shuddered to learn that someone you know has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which my friend Jill is fighting with all her might. Why is there so much cancer? Are we just better at diagnosing it now, so we hear about it all the time? And, while progress has been made in improving the odds of surviving breast cancer, what makes it happen in the first place? Are we any closer to knowing? And what about ovarian cancer, that has no symptoms and doesn't get diagnosed until too late, why does that happen so often?

When I think about the billions going to fight terrorism, and I compare the number of us affected by terrorism to the number of us affected by cancer, I get angry at our misplaced priorities. How likely are you to get injured or killed by a terrorist compared to your likelihood of getting cancer? I know where I want my tax money going, and it isn't into an hellish, senseless quagmire with no end in sight. I pray that an election and a new administration will lead us to get our priorities in order before we lose more Peggys and Janes and Ginnys. I hope you will work with me on that.