Race for the Cure is Saturday and most of the money raised stays right here in the community to help patients like the young Warrick County mother we're about to meet.
Jamie Ellard is battling breast cancer and her courageous fight is what the Race for the Cure is all about.
Jamie's been pretty beaten up the past few months, going through chemo, but you'd never know it by her bright smile and positive attitude.
She and her family will be walking, and they hope you'll join them.
Twelve years ago, Jamie Dempsey and Josh Ellard met as students at USI.
A few years later, they tied the knot across town at UE's Neu Chapel.
Today, Jamie and Josh are better known as mommy and daddy to six-year-old Jakob and four-year-old Sidney, who, by the way, both loved the camera.
It's not until you see Jamie's new short blonde hair that you realize this happy family is fighting a nasty disease.
"It was in April," Jamie said. "I was driving down the road, had my daughter in the back seat... '
Then, the phone rang.
"She said well 'Why don't you go home or go somewhere' and I said 'No, just tell me now."
Jamie, at just 32-years-old, had breast cancer.
"You can imagine, I was just really upset and I was trying not to be too upset for my daughter and she asked me what was wrong and I said, 'Mommy stubbed her toe,' so I was trying to hold it together," Jamie recalled.
That call came after two rounds of mammograms and ultrasounds.
The first in April 2011. came back clear, though Jamie felt a lump in her right breast.
It wasn't until a year later, with an additional popcorn kernel sized lump in her armpit, that the cancer was detected, and more tests only brought more bad news.
The cancer had spread. It was stage four.
"That was almost as hard as finding out, you know, that I had it in the first place. So then it's more questions."
Questions and worries.
"You know, my daughter might have to deal with this one day, and my nieces."
Since her diagnosis, Jamie's endured months of chemotherapy. Days of feeling downright terrible.
But through the nausea and pain, she's had her family beside her.
A family that will be with her again this Saturday at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.
Jamie is a reminder, she's proof, that younger women can and do get breast cancer.
And that's why she'll be racing this weekend, for a cure.
"It means a lot to have all the support of the community, to know that so many people are behind you," Jamie said. "And if anyone could come out and walk with the rest of the 18,000 that'll show up, it'll, it means a lot to everyone."
Jamie should wrap up this round of chemo the first week of October, and then will see what happens next.
It's not too late to register for Race for the Cure, they were handing out packets and shirts downtown at Old National Bank Thursday.
The Race for the Cure is Saturday. The race is at 9:00 a.m., activities, including the survivor parade, at 8:00 a.m.
Copyright 2012 WFIE. All rights reserved.
Jamie Ellard is battling breast cancer and her courageous fight is what the Race for the Cure is all about.
