'I'm not ready to leave yet:' Mother with cancer prepares for her first Race for the Cure

This weekend, thousands of people will put on pink and lace up their shoes to fight breast cancer as part of the 26th Annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure at Research Triangle Park.

Some, like 34-year-old Heather Lambert, will enter the race for the very first time – after receiving life-changing news.

When Lambert first found the lump in April of last year, she didn't think much of it. A mother of two children, ages 9 and 3, she and her fiance decided to get it checked – just to be safe.

"It could just be a cyst or tissue," she said at the time.

She had a mammogram done. An ultrasound. A biopsy.

"I got the call the next day that I had cancer in two spots -- one in my breast, and it had already reached my lymph nodes," she said.

The cancer was advanced -- stage 3.

The next month was a blur, she said. She had ten doctor appointments before her first chemotherapy treatment in late May.

"It was hard. You're shell-shocked," she said. "It hits you like a brick wall, and you're scared. I cried so much, and felt like I didn't have anything left."

She had to go on -- for her son, Waylon and her daughter, Sadie. And for her fiance, Jeff.

She and Jeff had a big day planned for June 11, 2021. But Lambert was already worrying -- would she feel well enough? Would she still have her hair?

"I'm going to lose my hair," she realized. "When am I going to lose my hair? I'm in the middle of chemo."

Even amid some of the scariest news a family can ever receive, this family saved the date -- and kept the date.

"I got married. Yes," she said.

They eloped to Virginia, with just the two children. They captured photos of the happy memories. Then after the wedding, she shaved off all her hair.

"Because that was the only think I felt like I had control over," she said.

For more than five months, she underwent chemotherapy. She's had surgeries and radiation treatments. And she's had an especially powerful therapy -- prayer.

"I think that's where my strength has really come from," she said. "There have been dark days and dark times, and you just think, 'I don't know if i have it in me.'"

But then – someone would stop in the school hallway and pray over her.

And then – she'd remember all the special someones loving on her.

"I have other people that I live for, and they are the most important thing," she said. "I'm not ready to leave yet."

This weekend, she's planning to walk in the Triangle Race for the Cure. She'll have her family and friends by her side, in a flamingo-inspired team she calls "Flocking for a Cure."

"It's really important for me to be their leader. I'm the one who's diagnosed, and I love that they're there to support me," she said. "I'm walking for me, but I'm also walking for the ones who can't."

Lambert will finish the race. She knows life, in all its beauty, isn't finished with her yet.

She's completed her first round of chemo and surgeries and is enjoying a break from treatment. She wants other young women with breast cancer to know that they, too, can thrive.