Breast cancer is not the only thing daughters can inherit from their mothers.

Strength, courage, stubbornness, and perseverance are also hereditary.

These are some of the traits that helped my mother through her fight with breast cancer, and have kept her going for the 25 years since her diagnosis. She also claims she got a good dose of "dumb luck," which is probably true.

I'm participating in the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day walk to help women count on more than just luck to survive breast cancer. I hope that the money we raise will help other women avoid the torment this disease causes them and their families. I hope to help, in my own way, to make it so that more families are as lucky as mine was to have our loved one survive, rather than die from, breast cancer.

I also want to put the qualities I hope to have inherited from my mother to the test. Training in winter-time Chicago for a sixty-mile, three-day walk and raising at least $1,900 in pledges seemed like a good way to put myself to the test.