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!