The Team Sarcoma Bike Tour is just over a week away! Todd is still struggling a bit with the training due to his chemo side effects, but we got out on the bikes tonight and he did great! :) Having this tour to look forward to has really helped keep our minds off the uncertainty that lies ahead, and we know this tour is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We are really looking forward to it!
Thanks so much to all of you who are following our blog and who have donated to the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative. Due to your generocity, our team alone has raised $2,325 for sarcoma research so far - isn't that wonderful?!?! We sure have some amazing people in our lives. Thank you all!
So here's our plan: Scott (Todd's dad) will be meeting us in Minnepolis and the 3 of us will fly to Washington D.C. on Friday, July 17 at 6:30 a.m. We have a quick layover in Milwaukee and will arrive in D.C. at noon. From there, we will have to occupy ourselves until 4:00 p.m., and then we'll take a 3-hour train ride to Cumberland, Maryland. Fortunately, we can check into the hotel and relax for the evening before joining the group on Saturday to get fitted for our bikes, tour the C&O Canal Museum, and have dinner at Ristorante Ottaviani’s on the downtown Cumberland Pedestrian mall. We are really looking forward to meeting the other participants in this event - especially those we've gotten to know through our online support group! We start the bike ride on Sunday, July 19 -- the first leg of the tour is about 30 miles with a break mid-way through the trip so we can tour to the Lockhouses. If we have Internet access, I'll try to post daily updates and pictures so we can share the experience with you. :)
Love,
Karen
Todd, let me first say good luck with ride! I admire your spirit, determination and perseverence in knocking out Osteosarcoma and in fighting the bring awareness and to raise money to research this horrible disease.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Peter Brown, father of Mattew Brown, age 7, who was diagnosed with multi-focal, synchronous Osteosarcoma back in August 2008. Mattie had four tumors, one in his right arm, two in his left arm and one in his right leg. He's jsut finished up 11 months of chemo, two massive limb salvaging surgeries and a sternotomy to remove nine lung lesions in addition to still being on an experimental drug, L-MTP-PE. He survived the chemo (as I'm sure you know what that is lie) and he's still struggling with a set of other issues from the chemo and treatments, but each day he gets up stubborn, pissed-off and not satisfied with the situation, which is a sign to my wife and I that he's still got the fighting spirit.
He's a remarkable young man and person like yourself, and like all other Osteo patients. We maintain a blog that we post to each day since he was diganosed, which you can find at: http://mattiebear.blogspot.com that chronicles his struggles with the diseas, his treatments and like Karen, our life as his caregivers, medical doctors and shepards.
I want to wish you all the best in your ride. We actually live in downtown Washington, DC., and will be following your ride. I hope to see it in the media as well. I think it's great that you're doing this for yourself, for kids like Mattie and for the fight against this rare and not well known disease. No one deserves this, and if they get it then they deserve better treatments and a cure for Osteo. So keep strong, live every day to its fullest and have a blast riding with Team Sarcoma later this month!
All my best,
Peter Brown