Man on the Run (Part II)

Little did I know that when I met my friend Brock in a bar twelve years ago that he’d someday run a marathon in my honor with my name scrawled on the back of his shirt. This is exactly what I witnessed today. It’s almost incomprehensible to me. Why did Brock do this? Oh yeah, I had cancer, heck, I’m still getting radiation to rid myself of it for good. The whole thing still seems surreal.

Brock ran with the Canadian Prairie Division for Team in Training which raised money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. He raised over $5,000 for the Society, way to go Brock! The night before the marathon, TNT had what they call the Inspiration Dinner. I met Brock and his girlfriend Ellie before the dinner and Brock gave me a shirt to wear- a survivor shirt with “Honouree” printed across the back which means Brock is running in my honour. (I’m being mindful to spell “honor” the Canadian way since that’s the way it’s printed on my shirt.)

We walked up to the giant banquet room and en route we encountered what Brock called “the red carpet.” Loads of people were staged along a path welcoming participants while clacking noise makers, cheering, and giving high-fives, it was like Mardi-Gras! We then got our food and sat down in the ballroom which seated over 800 people. The room was equipped with two giant projector screens that flashed photos of cancer survivors and cancer victims for whom the runners were running. As we ate our dinner, we heard from two speakers. The main speaker was quite enjoyable as he spoke with passion interwoven with humor. The next speaker was a mom whose infant daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of infant Leukemia in 2007 when she was only 11 weeks old. Her speech began with photos of her baby receiving chemo while a tear-jerking song played over the speakers. I could only take so much and quickly had to overt my eyes to the side wall. The mother told us how they fought for over three years and all the news they heard was bad and continued to get worse. It wasn’t until this April that they finally received good news that her son’s marrow transfer was working on her daughter and her daughter is doing much better. Talk about heart-wrenching. I rarely cry in public and it was all I could do to choke back the tears watching the pain on this mother’s face as she described the ordeal her family had been through- complete and utter hell.

At one point during the evening, they asked the survivors to stand up. This was really weird for me. For one, I have a really hard time drawing attention to myself in large crowds and two; sometimes I don’t feel like I qualify to call myself a “survivor.” At one point in the evening the speaker started talking about the fight people with cancer have to undergo at which point Brock reached out and patted me on the back and gave me a hug. It was a “What? Who? Me?” moment.

Truth be told, I don’t feel like I’ve had to put up much of a fight and I feel unworthy of any glory in comparison to other cancer patients. When I look at children, or people with really bad cancers who fight for their life, there is simply no comparison. Even though my cancer has been a part of my day every day for the past six months, it is simply something I’ve had to endure. I had to show up for my chemo and now I show up for my radiation. I’m just enduring it and going through the motions. Sure, it sucks, but I never have felt like I’m fighting for my life, and I feel really lucky as a result. My cancer has been somewhat surreal for me and perhaps someday I will wake up and say, “Oh my word, I had cancer! What the heck was that all about?” But right now, even though I talk about it openly, perhaps I still can’t comprehend the reality of it.

When I got home from the dinner, Lena and Aurelia were asleep. As I stared at them sleeping peacefully in their beds, tears welled up in my eyes and all I could think about was that mother’s talk earlier in the evening. When I crawled into bed I couldn’t sleep and I finally got out of bed and grabbed Aurelia and brought her into bed with me. I would have grabbed Lena too, but she was sleeping with my mom and I didn’t want to wake up my mom. I held sleeping Aurelia in my arms and I just kept thinking how thankful I was that cancer hit me instead of one of my children. That is something I would not have been able to endure. Eventually Aurelia woke up and that’s when I noticed her hair was dripping wet from my tears.

Today I met up with Ellie and we ventured to the finish line to watch Brock cross it. There were over 26,000 runners in the race and it was hard to get a view of the finish line. But we settled in just in time to see Brock cross with a huge smile on his face. He was really happy because he came in under four hours, a personal goal of his. It was a great feeling to be around thousands of happy people who just put their bodies through hell, but were still smiling. Thank you Brock for making me feels so awesome!

When I was first diagnosed back in January, I told Brock I wanted to run a marathon with him when I was in the clear. All along, I was planning on just keeping it local and doing the marathon in Juneau. Truth be told, the reason I wanted to do it was for myself, to prove that I could do it. Not anymore. After seeing what Brock has done with TNT, I want to run a marathon with TNT so I can raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I truly believe that I will do better and be more motivated if I’m running for something bigger than my own goal. I even know who I want to honor when I run. I will be running in memory of my dear friend and second “dad” Don Goffinet who died of Leukemia two years ago. Don meant the world to me and was the one who taught me that education is important, but not as important as getting out and experiencing the world we live in and learning from real life experiences. Don would be so proud of me for running in a marathon and I can already hear him cheering for me.

I guess this is kind of like announcing my campaign run for election, except I’m announcing my run for TNT! Now I just have to figure out which marathon I’m going to run with TNT. Any suggestions Brock?