Putting a Face on it

Ever wonder when you contribute to a charity, where your money goes or what kind of an impact it has?  Instead of blogging about running this week I thought I’d pass a long some stories of the lives you’ve touched through your support of Help in the Nick of Time.

Help in the Nick of Time funds a number of efforts to help families that are struggling with childhood cancer.   The two biggest programs, executed in conjunction with our partner One Mission, are the Junior Good Box program and the Never Alone Fund. 

The Good Box program sends age-appropriate boxes of toys, games, crafts, and stuffed animals to the children in the midst of fighting cancer.  It is a treasure chest of joy and distraction when a child is dealing with the painful, boring, and isolating process of cancer treatment.

The Never Alone fund targets helping families deal with the unexpected and often devastating issue that come up during treatment.   This could be as simple as the treatment. funds for a babysitter so a single mom can leave a sibling home when going to the hospital or more critical like money for a parent’s place to stay near the hospital, or funds to fix that old car that’s the lifeline to get to the hospital and doctor visits.

This past year with your help we sent over 80 Good Boxes to children ranging in age from 1 to 18 and covering 31 states.   Almost half these children have Leukemia, one of most difficult forms of cancer.    The thank you notes from parents are heartwarming but these pictures tell the story even better.

 

The Never Alone fund was also busy this year, helping families facing difficult life situations while fighting cancer.  These included helping with car repairs to get back and forth to treatment, dealing with short term rental needs, and in one case helping a family who lost everything in a fire.

Hopefully this has helped put some faces and stories to what Help in the Nick of Time and One Mission are doing with what you contribute.  100% of what is raised goes to helping these families.  Your support will smooth out the bumps in the road for families and put smiles on the faces of children as they go about the task of fighting childhood cancer.   You should be proud.

The WHY Dilemma

Not too long ago I had a conversation with my 5-year-old grandson who has a particular affinity for the word “Why”.    I enjoy his unbound curiosity for understanding why things are the way they are, especially when that curiosity is not aimed at me.   It’s not that I mind answering the non-stop why questions, it’s more that I know when we are 4 “whys” deep on a topic I inevitably will reach a question that exceeds my knowledge base.   Take the following exchange from last fall:Me:  Let’s go blow the leaves off the lawn (he loves using tools)O: Why do we need to blow them off the lawn?

Me: So they won’t cause bare spots?

O: Why will they cause bare spots?

Me:  Because they will kill the grass.

O:  Why will they kill the grass?

Me: How about we take the dog for a walk instead.

There are several technics I’ve honed to get out of this cycle.  There’s the tried-and-true deflection…” Good question, ask your (dad, mom, grandma)”.  This works particularly well when they ask where babies come from.   Then there’s the distraction method…” oh, look at the time, I think Grandma has cookies waiting for us)”.  Finally, there is always the option to make up an answer.  I find these days kids beyond the age of 6 know how to check an answer with Alexa or Google so it’s best not to give an answer that leaves them with the impression you are becoming senile.

Over the holidays my 4-year-old granddaughter was watching me try to tie my running shoes and she asked me why my hand shakes and why my movements are so slow.   I panicked thinking I’m on the verge of a series of “whys” if I answer wrong might scare or confuse a 4-year-old.   I explained I had a sickness in my brain that makes it hard to do some things.  She thought about that for a bit and then asked “Does it hurt when you run”.  I told her it does sometimes.  Then she asked the big WHY…Why do you keep running?

It's a simple question with a very complex answer.  Is it because it’s what I’ve chosen to keep my memory of my son alive through Help in the Nick of Time fund raising?  Is it because I am stubborn and unwilling to let Parkinsons totally take running away from me?  Or maybe it’s because on the days I am able to get out and run, I feel better both mentally and physically afterwards.  For a short while I can push back against the disease.

Regardless of which reason (or maybe because of all of them) I am pounding the roads again this year to raise funds to help children battling pediatric cancer.  With your support last year, we were able to help even more children and their families at one of the worst moments in their life.  Despite the snow and ice (yes...8 inches of snow in VA) training continues.  Slow and steady.

Next blog I’ll pass along more details on the lives we’ve touched and the smiles we created.

Till next time…..

Doing the Dopey

Those of you who followed my blog last year may recall a blog I wrote asking the question…Why had the marathon become the “in” thing to do these days?   As an example, I used the Disney World Marathon where 10’s of thousands of people sign up a year in advance and pay hundreds of dollars to spend their vacation in “the happiest place on earth” subjecting themselves to the pain of a marathon.    The rational side of me would rather stay home, save hundreds of dollars, avoid all the travel hassles and save my vacation days for something a lot less painful.   For those looking for the “marathon experience” you can always just beat your legs with a rolling pin for an hour.

In reality I would do the Disney Marathon in a second if I could still run that far.  Instead, I was able to experience it through my daughter who ran her first marathon at Disney a week ago.   But running a marathon was not enough, she and her husband signed up for the “Dopey”.  Aptly named, the Dopey is a series of runs starting with a 5K (3.1 miles) on Thursday morning, a 10K (6.2 miles) on Friday, a half marathon (13.1 miles) on Saturday and then a full marathon on Sunday.   Checking my calculator, that’s 48.6 miles not counting all the walking miles in the parks after the runs.  To be fair, this not race, more of a social event.  As is Disney’s style, they set it up as a whole experience with creative medals, social activities, and pictures with Disney characters along the route.  During the marathon you can even stop to ride some the rides.

While there are no Dopeys or marathons in my future I will be doing my Marathon Challenge again this year.  As long as I can move, I plan to continue the programs to help children with cancer.  More on the “Help in the Nick of Time” programs and the Marathon Challenge to come.

In case you are wondering….yes my daughter and her husband did complete them all, even stopping for pictures and stopping for a ride in the park.  I’m very proud of them.  They got the medals and experience; I got to watch their children (I got the better deal).

It's a Family Affair

 This past week Pam and I went down to Florida to visit Pam’s 97-year-old dad.   Dick, a veteran, was also a runner up to the last decade when his knee put an end to his running.   Both my daughters ran their first road races with him when they were knee high to a grasshopper.   

While I never pushed my children to run, all of them ran in high school.    I don’t know if my running had any influence on their decision but it is something they all have carried on later in their lives and now are passing on to some of their children.    

I had hoped this year’s marathon Challenge was going to be done at the Boston Marathon but that just wasn’t to be.  The combination of a gift of leftover hardware in my body, surgery, sepsis, and an all-expenses paid trip to the ICU in the last few months made that near impossible.  Add in the impact to my Parkinson’s (illness turbo-charges symptoms) and a wife who was a voice of reason, throwing in the towel was discouraging but the right answer.

My family, who were universally behind my wife’s position, stepped up again this year to help me out.  We got together in Pennsylvania where my daughter’s families live and they joined me in an effort to complete 26.2 miles as a family.    My goal was to jog/walk half the marathon distance and have the other half completed by family.  As it turns out, altogether we covered almost 100 miles with three of my grandchildren (ages 7,13,13) doing a full 13 miles with me.  My father-in-law even contributed a mile remotely making it a 4-generation effort.    

With another year in the books, I want to thank everyone for all the support and kind words that helped me make my Help in the Nick of Time goal and Marathon Challenge possible.   The children and families it will help send their thanks as well.   Finally, a special thanks to all my family members for putting up with me through this year’s efforts.  Love you all.

Stay safe and God willing I’ll be back next year.

 

Running for the Children

 While many of us have been touched by cancer, most of us can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be a family with a child fighting cancer.   Bringing a little joy and support to them during the tough times has been the goal of Help in the Nick of Time. This is a story of one of those cancer patients we touched.

Connor was 12 when he was diagnosed with cancer.  A passionate hockey player (goalie) and a member of the local baseball team, his life changed overnight to a life of injections, IV’s, surgery, chemo, radiation, and transfusions.    To get the specialized help he needed he had to travel away from home staying over 200 days during the next year at a Ronald McDonald’s House near the hospital.   During that time Connor would face rounds of chemo (82 treatments), radiation, transfusions, and testing, and in the process losing a third of his body weight.   But a measure of a person’s character is not just surviving the fight but how they fight.  In this case Connor would be considered a world heavy weight champion.  Not only did he keep a positive attitude, he made a positive impact on the people around him, including his hospital staff and other cancer patients.   Described as a good friend, kindhearted and sweet hundreds of people darned red and white striped “Where’s Waldo” knee socks to show their support.  This carried over to his own family as well.  His sister wrote on Facebook “i actually have no idea how he has been so strong and not only kept my parents sane but me aswell, connor is the strongest person i know and i love him more than words itself.”  

It was well into his second year of treatment when, with your support, Help in the Nick of Time, together with One Mission, sent Connor a box of gifts with the goal of bringing a bit of joy and surprise into what can often be a daily grind of tests and treatments. 

The initial treatment for Connor’s tumor was a success but like most battles with cancer it was not a “one and done”.    Six months after coming home Conner lost his battle with cancer.  

My running and fund raising with Help in the Nick of Time is not going to cure cancer or fund breakthrough research, no matter how fast or far I run.  But I believe it’s all about offering a bit of joy and a note of caring at a time when a child and their family really needs it.

As for my marathon efforts, getting back to running has been a challenge.  Age is a soulless master and my 70-year-old body is taking longer to recover from the hospital stay than I would like. But I’m back to walking and a bit of jogging and with the help of my family we hope to complete this year’s Marathon Challenge as a team next weekend.

 

Sometime Dreams are just Dreams

 It’s April 2022 and I had just finished my marathon challenge, 26.2 miles in 4 1/2 hours over 3 days.    I have the Boston Marathon on the TV and as I’m watching the runners and  I’m reminiscing about past Boston Marathons.  I realize (duh) I’ve had been running Boston off and on for the last 40+ years, at least once every decade of my life since I was in my twenties (5 decades…wow am I old).

There’s always been a war in my brain between two personalities, the adrenaline driver “Mr. Risk-Taker” and the cautious (and boring) “Mr. Rational”.    In the adrenaline driven fog of watching the race Mr. R-T takes over, “you’ll be 70 in two years, you could do one more Boston and add another decade to your accomplishments.”   Of course, Mr. R is not going to ideally sit by, “It taken you 4 years since cancer to get to where you can run a marathon in three days there’s no way you can do complete the Boston Marathon”.

And so it begins:

Mr. R-T….You have two years to train, you can do this.

Mr. R….You can barely make half the distance today and your Parkinson’s is getting worse.    Even if you could make it, you are so slow you would be out there for 5+ hours.

Mr. R-T….You will never know unless you try.  Think about the thrill of crossing that finish line one more time.

Mr. R……There is no chance you could qualify to get in.

Mr. R-T….Maybe I can get one of Help in the Nick of Time charities to give me a number. 

You can guess who won the argument.  Fast forward a year and a half  and I’ve managed to get a coveted number for the Boston Marathon and a hotel room near the finish line (no small feat).  All that is left is the training.   While my running had progressed well for the first year, the combination of a kidney operation and the inevitable progression of Parkinson’s in the last 6 months forced a strategy rethink.  The new plan is to use a run/walk approach which would require over 6 hours to get to the finish.

The 3 training months leading up to the marathon are the critical ones.   Between the operation in January to retrieve the wayward clip in my bladder, the resulting ICU visit with sepsis and a recent fall resulting in a cracked rib, my training has suffered.  Mr. R-T believes we can still do the marathon but the doctors have advised against it.   For once Mr. R wins and I am throwing in the towel on the Boston Marathon.   Sometimes dreams are just dreams no matter how hard you try.

As I’ve said in the past, “Acceptance is not Surrender”.  I’m working on a new approach to do the marathon challenge this year and will have more on that shortly.

Thanks to all who have been cheering me on, it has meant more to me than you’ll ever know.    More to come.

 

One Step at a Time

Colin Powell, a man I admire, wrote a book listing his 13 rules for life and leadership.  Great book.  The first rule is “It ain’t as bad as you think.  It will look better in the morning.”  I can tell you from my experience over the last two weeks, he’s right.    My situation was not as bad as I thought it was, it was much worse.

Two weeks ago, facing an early Sunday morning long training run I went to bed early feeling a little under the weather.   No problem, Colin Powell says I’ll feel better in the morning.   So I was a bit surprised in the morning when I woke and couldn’t get out of bed.  Literally.  I tried to sit up, that wasn’t happening.  Tried to push myself up with my arms but they were like over cooked spaghetti.   Realizing something was not even close to a normal situation I of course should have called for help.   Not a chance.  Have you ever noticed how one bad decision can often snowball into a series of irrational steps that when you look back begs the question “What were you possibly thinking?” 

In this case it started with the idea that if I could move my legs over the side of the bed I can sit up and then stand.   Fifteen minutes later after successfully slipping my legs off the side bed I found myself lying on the floor like a beached whale, unable to get up or roll over.   At this point my wife finds me and calls my son and they rationally decide to call an ambulance.  The ambulance ride was cool but not something I would recommend you put on your bucket list.  I did get them to put on the siren and lights for part of the trip.

Long story, but the short version is I ended up in the ICU for a few days with a raging kidney infection and sepsis, likely caused when they went in the week before to remove the wayward clip in my bladder.  Touch and go for a few days but I finally got home 5 days later with a walker to get around.  It’s a total mystery to me how I could literally overnight go from running 30 miles a week to unable to walk because of a kidney infection.   Now a week later I’m able to get around without the walker but I haven’t tried running yet.

Not sure where that leaves me relative to the marathon.  I have a little over two months to go but I’m unsure what level of training and endurance I’ve lost.  Right now I’m thankful just to be back on my feet.

The hospital stay did remind me how hard it can be facing each day of poking and prodding, endless tests, medications that make you nauseous and nights of constantly interrupted sleep.   It also reminded me that this is why we work to bring a bit of joy and distraction to children battling cancer, often in the hospital fighting not for days or weeks, but for months and years.   

Stay tuned, an update on the recovery progress shortly.

 

Special Gifts

My running was not so good this week.  Have you ever received one of those gifts where you said to yourself “I really wish they hadn’t. Really!

The first gift came from my grandchildren.  Seems Pink eye had been running rampant at their school and while they were over it, they managed to gift it to me (not Pam…they like her more).    If you never had it, count yourself blessed.  Eyes are crusted shut, blurred vision, light sensitive, and goopy (technical term).    Often it felt like I had sand in my eyes and I would be walking around squinting like Popeye.  As you might imagine, that’s not conducive to running on narrow country roads.

Which leads to the second gift, this one from Mother Nature.   What happened to global warming?   I have enough difficulties training without adding snow, ice and cold to the challenges.  And who doesn’t love that stimulating feeling you get when you are not fast enough dodging an ice cold slush wave.

 The third gift was from my Urologist/Oncologist.   You may recall last year about this time I was being treated for a mass in my bladder blocking flow from my kidney.  Ultimately it wasn’t cancer but they needed to operate to remove the blockage and restore the kidney function (as a side note, it was a fascinating robotic surgery).

A follow-sup ultrasound last week detected a new mass in the bladder.  This week they did a cystoscope to look inside the bladder.  If you’ve never had one, count yourself lucky.  It’s not something to put on your bucket list.  Good news, no tumor.   Surprise, it was a surgical clip leftover from the original operation.   They were able to grab it with a little claw on the end of the scope and pull it out.   I can attest from the discomfort that the route it traveled on the way out was never meant to carry anything solid. 

But not all gifts are unwanted.    In 2024 Help in the Nick of time provided almost 100 children fighting pediatric cancer with surprise boxes of toys, games, and gifts.  In a world full of isolation, pain, and loneliness these boxes bring a mountain of joy and distraction.  Here’s what one teen’s mom had to say….“I can honestly say that I do not recall Addie being as excited about a gift as she was with this box ... every item was a hit and it was all a surprise to her!!! The Friends Lego set and Ugg blanket were both items she has wanted, but thought were too expensive to request.”  

None of this is possible without your support.  I wish you could be there to see the joy you bring to these children and their families.   It’s what drives me out the door on mornings where I challenge slush waves and icy roads looking like Popeye.

Thank you!

Paying for Pain

 

I’m struggling with a running question that I’m hoping someone who reads this can answer for me.    When did the competition to enter a marathon race become so competitive that people will sign up a year in advance and pay hundreds of dollars just to get to the starting line?    Seriously….can someone explain to me what happened that took running a marathon from something that a few thousand elite athletes or a handful of crazies would do to something that is now the venue of hundreds of thousands of couch potatoes, soccer moms, and weekend warriors every year.  

In a few days Walt Disney World will host the runDisney Marathon.  20 years ago, if someone had suggested that running a marathon is something you would do when you went on vacation to an amusement park, they would have been a candidate for a padded cell.    I can just imagine the initial proposal sounded like from some runner in the Disney marketing department….We hold a marathon that runs throughout the parks, charge hundreds of dollars to enter, make them buy a park pass for the day (over $100 today) and limit the number of entrants to 20,000 so people are fighting to get in.    After several days in the parks with the kids, some parents would pay to run a marathon rather than face another day of lines and rides.   And why limit it to the parents, let’s get the kids involved.  We can have shorter runs..a 5K, a 10K, and a half marathon and make it a family affair.   Oh, and for the real Disney diehards we can have a special “Dopey” medal for a runner who does all 4 runs over 4 days (it will only cost $600).

Last year there were 1,100 marathon races in the US with over 500,000 people participating.  Allowing for international runners and people running multiple marathons, that’s about 1% of the US population (actually more since I didn’t rule out children under 16).   Crazy as it may sound, about half of the entrants in the bigger races continue to be first time marathoners.   Who are all these people paying big bucks to torture themselves?

Clearly the demand is there as the races continue to raise prices and many have limits on the number of entrants.   It’s the classic case of supply and demand…make it harder to get in and more people are willing to pay more to run it.  The NYC Marathon (the largest in the US) had 50,000 finishers last year with an entry fee is $295.  According to my Texas Instruments calculator that’s almost $15 million.  Not bad for a weekend event.  

The Boston Marathon is even harder to get into.  If you manage to run a qualifying time or are lucky enough to get one of the limited charity numbers, you have the privilege of paying a $375 entry fee.   A privilege I will have this year.  Yup…I’m headed back to Boston to attempt one more Boston Marathon and to raise funds to help families facing pediatric cancer.  It will be the first time since my stem cell transplant and Parkinson’s diagnosis that I’ve attempted anything longer than a half marathon but having turned 70 this year I’d like to give it go one more time.     

So, I invite you to come along with me on what is bound to be an interesting ride.  As always, it’s your encouragement and financial support of pediatric cancer families through Help in the Nick of Time that fuel my efforts.

Happy New Year….it should be an interesting one!

The More The Merrier

 Last weekend my family got together in Pennsylvania to make this year’s Marathon Challenge a family affair.   That amounts to 8 adults and 9 grandchildren (between the ages of 12 and 2), almost a small village.   Rounding out the Nick of Time Team was my sister, her husband and Jeep the dog.

Given the medical issues that curtailed my training, I had changed the run from a marathon run alone and spread over three days to a team effort done in one day.   The plan was for me to run as far as possible and then have family members complete the 26.2 miles for me.    Not counting Jeep, we had a team of 10 runners ranging in age from 6 to 69.

We picked a course that had a 3.5-4-mile loop so we could loop by the support team (the rest of the family) for moral support and refreshments.   A different family member would join me for each loop.   My twin grandchildren ran the first two loops with me, and while they are much faster than me these days, they were kind enough to slow down to my pace.   The team continued trading off runners in a relay fashion to keep me company while I ground away at the miles.   At 12 miles my legs starting knotting up and by 14 miles I was cooked.    Not as much as I would have liked but the farthest I’ve gone in one run since the stem cell transplant 5 years ago.  The team more than made up the rest of the mileage by adding on another 31 miles.   Those 45 miles don’t include all the miles run by people who signed up for the Miles for Smiles Virtual Run/Walk.

But the success of the weekend is not measured in miles but in what we (yes…you and I) were able to raise this year to help the children battling Pediatric Cancer.    Already this year we are on schedule to send out over 50% more boxes than last year.  Here’s an example of the joy you bring with your support.

It’s your support that has put that smile on her face.   And we don’t stop there.  Often times the parents need some help as well.  It may be as little as gas to commute to the hospital each day, money for a baby sitter to watch siblings, food service to bring a hot meal to the family at the end of a long day, or repairs for a single mom’s car so she can be with her child.   In the words of one mom:

 “thank you for the gift card to Target. That will help with getting more diapers or wipes. That's a never-ending purchase right now."

During really tough times, it’s the little things that let people know they are not alone and can put a smile on their face.   I keep being reminded by a close friend…it’s not about the miles it’s about the smiles.

So next year…definitely more smiles and maybe, just maybe, more miles.