I'm not sure how to begin, so I'll just give a little background.

I've known Jessica since high school, and we dated a little in college. We lost touch for a few years while I was in the army but began dating again when I was discharged. We were engaged in August, 2003 and married in September, 2004. In August of 2008, our son, Jack, was born. About 5 years ago she was diagnosed with Lupus and it really altered her lifestyle. She could no longer run and exercise like she did in the past due to the muscle fatigue and joint pain Lupus caused. She also developed a sensitivity to the sun that would limit her time outdoors. Another side effect of the Lupus and the medicine used to treat it were seizures that she began to suffer from 4 years ago. After some medicine juggling and a six-month stint of not being able to drive, the seizures were brought under control.

Jessica was considered to have fibro adenoma and has found lumps in the past. After breast sonograms and some biopsies, they were always found to be benign. This past March, she found a lump, and went for a sonogram that really didn't leave us worried after our past experience. It was a lump that had been discovered six-months prior during a sonogram and didn't seem significant. This time the lump had grown a bit and the radiologist recommended a biopsy. Still not worried after a consultation with her breast surgeon, she went in for the biopsy on March 10th.

On Friday, March 12th when my phone rang at 7pm and I heard her surgeons voice on the other end of the phone, I knew it wasn't good news. The lump had turned out to be cancerous. The next few weeks of office visits and internet research where a blur, but on April 7th, Jessica went in for a double bilateral mastectomy. The surgery went well and there was still a chance of not having to go through chemo after finding out she was node negative and was also negative for the BRCA test.

After a long and stressful 3-4 weeks of waiting, the results of the oncotype came back and it put her in the low risk portion of the test. Given the fact that she is only 32, was in the high-end of the low bracket of the oncotype test, and that there apparently was some cancer cells detected in a lymph node (though not enough to classify her as node positive), her oncologist recommended chemo.

She started her chemotherapy treatment on May 28th and has 3 more treatments, every other week. It's been very difficult watch her fight through all of these things and not really be able to help. I try to be as supportive as possible, but there are only so many times you can ask "Is there anything I can get for you?" I joined Marathon for the Cure because I've heard nothing but great things about the Susan G. Komen organization, and I felt like I had to get myself in motion to help raise some money and hopefully help find a cure for this awful disease.

While there have obviously been difficult days and times to say "Why me?" Jessica has remained amazingly positive and is charging into the fight head on. She is truly an amazing and inspiring woman!