I’m making strides for Laura

Like many people, I started glazing over everything pink in the month of October.

From pink footballs to pink M&M’s to pink Kitchen Aid mixers, it seemed pink went from being a color represented by breast cancer survivors to a color corporations wanted to latch onto only to show they “supported” a cause that just so happened to affect women, who just so happen to buy a lot of stuff.

Helping the American Cancer Society and its signature fundraiser Relay For Life has been nearly a full-time (volunteer) job for almost two decades for me. So fighting back against cancer wasn’t a foreign concept, I just stayed in the background in October.

All of that changed in October 2014 when one of my most favorite people in the world — someone I met through the American Cancer Society — was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I remember the call. My phone rang early on Oct. 10.

“It’s breast cancer,” were some of the first words Laura said.

She had been my partner in crime for many American Cancer Society Relay For Life events — a great volunteer/staff partner duo (at least I hope she agrees!!), so hearing that my friend who has given her life to raising money toward research and programs and services to help survivors and families was now a survivor, I was mad, sad, pissed off and beside myself.

Friends of Laura’s joined her the next day at the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Greater Pittsburgh walk — and for the first time, Laura, who was there to help at the event as a staff member for the American Cancer Society, donned a survivor shirt.

A year later, she’s now the community manager for Pittsburgh’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. And I can’t think of anybody better for the job of turning the city of black and gold to pink!

So it is for my friend Laura that I am making strides in this fight against breast cancer.