Breathe Deep Lake Arlington walk to support lung cancer research

Local resident Naomi Moderick lost her son Mark, after only a three month battle, to lung cancer. Moderick learned the hard way that the disease takes the lives of nearly three times as many men as prostate cancer.

"A mother should not lose her son," said Moderick. "It's the No. 1 cancer killer, with more deaths every year than breast, prostate, colorectal, pancreatic and melanoma cancers combined, yet it receives only a fraction of the attention and funding of those diseases. I knew it was up to me to take action to change this reality."

Moderick decided to establish Breathe Deep Lake Arlington, a two- or four-mile walk honoring her son, in 2012 to help with her grief and help patients and families suffering from the disease. Breathe Deep Lake Arlington will take place on Sunday, Sept. 27, at Lake Arlington in Arlington Heights.

Registration is now open at www.lungevity.org/lakearlington and check in will begin at 8:30 a.m. The funds raised by this event will support LUNGevity Foundation, the nation's largest private funder of lung cancer research.

The day before her first walk in 2012, Moderick found out that she too was facing lung cancer, putting even more fuel into her fight. Currently, someone diagnosed with the disease has only a 16 percent chance of surviving five years past diagnosis.

Local volunteers like Moderick have mobilized in the Arlington Heights area to form the rapidly growing national Breathe Deep movement to make a real difference in the lives of the nearly quarter-million Americans diagnosed with lung cancer each year, more than half of whom never smoked or quit years ago.

"Because of generous volunteers like Naomi, LUNGevity is able to invest significant research funds into the early detection and leading-edge treatment of lung cancer," said Beth Ida Stern, LUNGevity's vice president of Community Engagement. "They join a family of tens of thousands of people who will walk and run in our Breathe Deep program this year. To date, Breathe Deep events have raised more than $20 million. It's enabled LUNGevity to invest in 110 research prizes with the most promising researchers at the best cancer institutions in the country."

For information, to register or donate, visit www.lungevity.org/LakeArlington.

The LUNGevity Foundation's vision is a world in which no one dies of lung cancer. The foundation is committed to making an immediate impact on increasing quality-of-life and survivorship of people with lung cancer by accelerating research into early detection and more effective treatments, as well as providing community, support, and education for all those affected by the disease.

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