Cancer has always been a part of my life. Cancer will always be a part of my life. I lost my grandfather to cancer when I was very young and have lost years of time and memories we could have made together. My mom lived with cancer for basically half of my life until she passed in 2015 a few weeks before my 19th birthday. One of my closest girlfriends in university had a tussle with cancer in our last years of school and another one of my girlfriends had childhood cancer that she told me about early into our friendship. 

As of my 30th birthday I will be getting preventative mammograms and colonoscopies every single year to screen for potential infection and tumors since my mom was diagnosed so young and had such an aggressive type. 

As I age I know that there will be more people in my life that are diagnosed. I will accompany them to their appointments, run errands for them, look after their kids for them and do whatever they need to make sure they feel supported and are not alone.

This is a reality for most of us and while it feels like a ticking time bomb or an inevitability, the one thing we have control over and can do to interrupt the cycle is to donate to research projects and programming that support those working through this disease. 

I saw firsthand with my mom what these medical trials and programs can do to lengthen life spans of cancer patients and support them and their families while they handle the diagnosis and ongoing medical appointments. My mom had so many more years with our family because of the doctors she had and medications she was on which were all funded by these types of events and charities.

If you feel frozen in fear or dread from cancer, take control and make a donation if you can or send this donation opportunity to others in your life that might be able to. Let's take control of cancer and transform our futures together.