Day 22 of Run 31, and today’s mile belongs to Lynda – who almost didn’t tell us her story, because she thought it was too small.

Listen to Lynda’s story

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She thought her story was too small

When we first talked with Lynda, she was nervous about coming on the air. Not because of what she’d been through – because she didn’t think what she’d been through counted. Caught early. Removed. No long treatment. Next to the other stories we’ve told this month, she worried hers wasn’t big enough to take up the time.

We told her that is the point.

The entire reason we spend a month on this – the miles, the mammogram reminders, all of it – is so that more stories end up looking like Lynda’s. Found early. Handled. Over with. If the only stories anybody hears are the hardest ones, people get scared of the test instead of scared of the thing the test is looking for.

Her daughters are the ones who pushed her to come share it. Smart daughters.

Two scares, and both of them went the way you hope

Lynda has survived two big cancer scares. One in her right breast. One in her left ovary.

Both were found. Both were taken out. In her words, both were “clean cut, diagnosed and removed” – no complications, no long course of treatment on the other side of it.

That’s the whole account. No fifteen-year fight, no chemo calendar, no list of medications. It’s a short story because early detection makes for short stories.

What came after

Here’s the part Lynda wanted us to know about most.

After she lost an ovary, she gave birth to a baby boy.

“I am ever so very grateful that I was able to give birth to a beautiful baby boy after losing my ovary, and that I’ve continued every day to watch my children, and now grandchildren, grow.”

Children. Then grandchildren. Decades of ordinary days on the other side of two scares that could have gone a very different way. That’s what early detection buys you, and it almost never comes with a dramatic story attached – which is probably why we forget to say it out loud.

So if you’ve been sitting on a story like Lynda’s, thinking it’s too small to bother anybody with: it isn’t. Yours might be the one that gets somebody else to go in.

Lynda, today we run for you. Thank you for showing up anyway.

Run for them. Get screened for you.

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