The Mitchell Family: Race for Breath 2011

Today, Sydney and I participated in the Race for Breath in Virginia Beach, VA. The Race for Breath raises money for lung cancer research, education, advocacy, and treatment. Lung cancer is a nasty nasty thing that has affected our family directly more times than I would like in the last few years. My Grandpa was diagnosed in 2007 and is currently in remission. My Dad's girlfriend's father is also currently in treatment after being diagnosed recently. And it doesn't stop there, but for the sake of continuing, I will move on...

So Sydney and I were participating in the 5K Walk this morning and Boy Oh Boy was it windy outside!!! I mean, this was a massively painful amount of windiness, lol. The first half of the journey was manageable because the wind was at our back. But for the second half of the trip....WHEW! The wind blowing head on at us was so intense that we actually had to move from the oceanfront side to the other side of the boardwalk to avoid some of the wind. I stress how windy it was, but in reality, for those of us who were participating---it was a very temporary inconvenience in our busy lives and that is nothing compared to the constant journey of someone suffering from this icky icky form of cancer. It was probably not nearly as bad as I remember at the moment in my sleepiness, but I just feel so blessed that we were able to be there and participate.

The other great part of the story is who I was with today. A really great friend of mine, Karen, is engaged to a man whose father passed away from Lung Cancer. Since then, Karen's future sister in law (who is also a great friend of Karens), has become very involved in fundraising for this cause. They have formed a team of participants for the Race for the Breath and from what I can tell, they are doing some really amazing things. But I have not seen Karen for YEARS. It is really sad actually because from our senior year of high school into college we were pretty much inseparable. But it was great to see her and all of the other girls that I met through her during our closer years. One of the girls, Amber, has a little girl Melia and she is PRECIOUS. She is going to be 1 this month and Sydney was tickled by her once they could get themselves out from all of their blankets and cold weather gear. Here are a couple of pictures from our day!