Nobody can ever imagine hearing the words "you have cancer".  Not even in your worst nightmares.  Those three simple words take everything you thought that you knew about your life and make it come crashing down.  Anyone that has ever heard those words knows that your life or your family member's life will never be the same again.   Many women have heard those words.  "You have ovarian cancer".  It is life shattering.  Many days you are angry because you feel that you did everything right.  You ate organic, you exercised, you didn't smoke.  Other days the tremendous guilt that consumes you because you think of some things that maybe you could have done better.   You search endlessly for something that you can change in your life to prevent this from ever coming back.  It's an ongoing, uphill battle that women diagnosed with ovarian cancer face every time they wake up.

And you know what?  These women didn't do anything wrong.  Ovarian cancer is an unforgivable disease.  It strikes women that are eighteen years old or eighty years old.   The symptoms leading up to diagnosis are usually very subtle.  Urinary, pelvic, and abdominal pain and issues.  Some women spend countless days going undiagnosed because doctors do not believe they could ever have this disease.  They go through numerous tests only to be brushed aside.  Other women do not recognize these vague issues and pains as being significant.  This is what makes ovarian cancer so dangerous.   The majority of the time ovarian cancer is discovered at stage III or higher.  Many women will have life changing surgery, chemotherapy, and other therapies to try to put the disease in remission.

Some women will go into remission for a short time while others will experience a long progression free period.  Unfortunately about half will not survive past five years.  Some will be cured.  However even in remission, women that have experienced this disease will have to find themselves again.  If you have experienced it, this disease changes everything you thought you knew about yourself or your family member's or friend's future.   Women have to put themselves back together after being completely broken.  They will make new goals, have new aspirations, and find themselves again.  And if there is one positive that comes out of the nightmare that they went through it's that they found their true self.  Because women that come out of this disease are incredibly strong.  They are physically, mentally, and emotionally forced to be the strongest version of themselves when they least expected it.   In that they will define themselves and they will fight with everything they have because this disease will not define them and they will not let it win.

Along with their own strength women need doctors that they can put all of their faith in.  MD Anderson has doctors that spend countless hours traveling and researching to improve treatments and technologies to fight ovarian cancer.  They work with women and their families to give them the best chance at surviving this disease.  I have seen this disease and what women with this disease have to go through.  I don't believe there is any other hospital in the country I would trust with my own life or my family member's life to go through this battle with. 

This year I am running to support all of the amazing work that MD Anderson does and continues to do to fight ovarian cancer.  I will run so that women recognize symptoms of this disease so that it can get treated and diagnosed sooner.  I will run so that women diagnosed don't feel so alone.  And I will run so that one day when a person hears "you have ovarian cancer" it isn't the same as it is now because they will also hear "there is a cure".