The holiday weekend is here and with an early release from
work I have some time to try and catch you all up on my activities of the past
few weeks.
As you’ll remember this new chemo protocol started with
round 1 back in early July while we were also doing radiation treatments. That combo made things a bit interesting with
my blood counts but since then the post-treatment neulasta injections have been
doing their job and my blood counts have been stable. The biggest challenge with chemo is actually
rolling around now since the school year is starting next week and Amy won’t be
in a position to accompany me for 3 straight days of treatment. Amy will continue to join me on the first day
of each treatment but the remaining two days we'll be enlisting the help of
family and friends. We look to be OK for
September 18-20 but will consider all offers as we go into October. This will be new for me and could be fun as
we spread the chemo fun around. Ha!
The weekend before Livestrong there was an informal 35th
high school reunion that was hosted at the Jersey shore by one of my Union High
School friends in the Class of 1977. As
with the event he also held last year it was a blast. As I’ve said before on this blog one of the
biggest lessons I’ve learned through my saga is the incredible boost I get from
the kind words of friends new and old.
People came up to me one by one, some that I haven’t seen in literally
35 years, and simply said it was a very moving day. Many thanks to my Union High School
classmates. Especially to Joe Falgares
and his wife Maddalena for being such generous and gracious hosts.
Ahhh yes, Livestrong.
The weekend that never disappoints.
Heading into the Livestrong weekend of August 18-19 I literally
had no clue whether I was going to walk, ride, or just sit during the weekend
events. I really had plenty of aches and
pains, lack of physical condition to be cycling on hills, and miscellaneous
other unpredictable chemo side effects.
But as some have seen in the pictures posted on Facebook, this is not an
event that I can easily take a pass on.
Especially not after what the months of May-July had given me. This was my opportunity to get on my bike and
tell cancer where the hell it could go.
And so that’s what I did.
I made sure that I was hydrated, that I had eaten enough to
support me through the short 20-mile route, and I took some precautionary meds
pre-ride. I knew that my Mentschen posse
of around 10 would help me through and let me tell you the stars aligned to
make this one of the best rides I’ve ever been on. I conquered several decent hills WITHOUT
WALKING (See the pic here as I pass others that DID walk up hills. Of course with my personal motivator Mark Cheben!) and I
generally felt terrific. It all
culminated with a dramatic finish as I crossed the finish line on the right to
pick-up my survivor’s rose and my posse rode in formation on the left as my
escort. Yep, you got it… I kinda lost
it. I hope the ride photographers got
some good shots of our finish.
And the donations for Livestrong continue to trickle
in. It looked for a while like we might
take some team honors but a few teams came out of nowhere for the top few
spots. But the Mentschen have done well
and when corporate matching gifts settle in we could wind up in the #4 spot at
approximately $34,000. Meanwhile, my
fundraising was a new personal record for a single event at $6,685 (still
waiting for a match). That puts the
Mentschen 5-year total over $170,000. We’re
well positioned to blow through the $200,000 mark next year!
One more time…. Thank
you, thank you, thank you to all that donated so generously. It’s important that we keep this support going
because the Lance Armstrong Foundation is unique and very productive in the
work it does in various aspects of cancer survivorship, advocacy, and support
for research.
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