Aubrey's WA T-shirt benefiting the Susan G. Komen Philadelphia 3-Day

The 2015 Philadelphia 3-Day will be my eighth time walking in this event. The reasons I signed up for my first walk in 2010 have changed time and time again. Every year, a new story, a new diagnosis, a new reason. I'm tired of having reasons. My mother wasn't a cancer patient when I signed up for my first walk, but now she's a survivor. My friend hadn't been diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer at the age of 24, but now she's gone. A hero in the Seattle community had just finished chemo treatments the week of the 2011 3-Day, but now she's fighting for the 5th time, and just turned 40. My grandmother has buried two daughters to cancer, and she's a three-time survivor.

Reason after reason compels me to walk every year. Every year here I am begging for your support because cancer doesn't take a break, and groveling at the feet of my hero's. They aren't stories. They aren't statistics. They are people I love. They are people that get up every day and put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and me, yet they endure a heap of treatments, doctors visit's, and unimaginable odds. Their bravery is unfathomable.

Due to my personal and family history, it's highly likely that one day the day will come that I will need to fight cancer. Knowing I'll have a plethora of people to draw direction and strength from is both a blessing and curse. I don't know how to feel about that fact. In one hand, I'm grateful to know I'd have somewhere to turn to, but it also seems unfair that people I love have had to blaze the trail for the rest of us.

Everyone I know is fighting cancer. Some of you are fighting with your bodies, and some of you are fighting by raising funds and awareness. You're a hero to me, to your families, to our community, and to the future of cancer research. This is about savings lives. This is about helping uninsured women gain access to a mammogram. This is about giving people more time. 

For the eighth time, I'm asking for your help. I need you to donate to me so we can help these people. The statistics are one in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. You couldn't possibly line up eight of your most loved women and choose one of them to have breast cancer. I'm asking you to help me so we can help them. Please support me as I take an amazing journey in the fight to end breast cancer!

The Susan G. Komen 3-Day® is a 60-mile walk over the course of three days. Net proceeds help support research, scientific programs and community-based breast health and education programs for women and men facing breast cancer.