As most of you probably know, six years ago, I was working at Ropes & Gray when a friend and co-worker’s college-aged brother was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was being treated at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; that co-worker (let’s call her Z for literally no reason) would visit him there and came back with stories about the wonderful staff.
My friend Candace, who also worked at Ropes, found out that Ropes had a team in this PMC thing and she really wanted to try riding in it as a way to help give something back to Dana-Farber and do something for the people who were doing so much to help our friend’s brother. I’m nothing if not easily convinced to do things, especially things that sound awesome, so I signed up to do the Saturday-only ride from Sturbridge to Bourne. Once the weather thawed a bit, I went to a bike shop with Candace and a road bike-savvy friend. I bought a bike, a helmet, shoes, gloves, shorts, a shirt, a pump, tubes, tools, and a map. I went back to pick my bike up the following week and promptly fell over in the parking lot while trying to unclip. A friend drove me home.
That summer was full of falls, as I re-learned how to ride a bike with very skinny tires that I was physically attached to by the feet. (The following year I was still feeling wobbly and a fitting at a different shop – Wheelworks! Thank you! - revealed that the bike I had bought was a little too big for me. I sold it and replaced it with a smaller bike and have ridden much more confidently ever since.)
For Z and her brother and their family, that summer was full of much scarier moments. He needed a stem cell transplant (Z was a match!), and as is often the case with cancer treatments, the treatment can be just as tough and dangerous as the disease and requires careful monitoring. Ultimately, the transplant was a success! I even have a great update from the man himself:
More than five years have passed since I underwent treatment for T-cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma including an Allogeneic stem-cell transplant at Dana-Farber. I attribute my current health and happiness to the support of my family and friends and the works of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Today, I am working on my PhD at Purdue University and most importantly, on the second day of the Pan-Mass Challenge, I am getting married to my high school sweetheart and best friend. I would like to thank the riders, volunteers, and everyone who donates to such an unbelievable cause for helping people like myself continue on living life.
So that’s why I started riding. Today, that’s just one of the many reasons I continue to ride.
We’re only $5000 from our minimum fundraising goal, and we have a little over one week to go. I suppose $5000 seems like a lot, but it’s not. Between all of us on the team we know a lot of people. Certainly, we know at least 500 people. So if everyone we know donated just $10, we would hit our goal! If you’re able to donate, we, and the people we ride for, would really appreciate it.
