Why We're Doing This

Just when I needed a pick-me-up, we got this message from one of our team heroes, Frank. I posted earlier about him, but here's his story in his own words:

"I first became familiar with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society 3 years ago after I got a chilling phone call telling me that the little lump in my neck turned out to be “lymphoma”. I remember thinking to myself, “I know I’ve heard the word ‘lymphoma’ before but I don’t really know what that is…is it Cancer? Do I need to ask how long I’ve got left to live?” This particular doctor really felt he’d done his job & wanted to get off the phone so he told me I needed to go find an oncologist who specialized in something called Hodgkin’s Disease? I had a diagnosis I knew nothing of and knew even less about what to do first.
The feeling of sheer horror was compounded by the fact that I knew I’d have to go home that night and greet my wife with this news even though she was 38-weeks into the pregnancy of our first baby. I really needed answers and fortunately I found a group on the internet called the Leukemia & Lymphoma society, which provided me with a wealth of research and resources so I could quickly become an expert in my own treatment. I learned about everything from how to interview an oncologist to what fertility decisions cancer patients needed to make if they hoped to have additional children after treatment.
We had just enough time to find an oncologist when our situation went from bad to worse. The day before I was set to begin chemotherapy my wife had an emergency c-section and our son Liam was immediately medevac’d to a specialty hospital to have open-heart surgery. He just barely survived transport and though his heart-lung bypass operation went very well he unfortunately passed away after 9 weeks in intensive care.
The only way to survive this much tragedy at once is to have many, many, many very special people to depend on. My entire extended family dropped everything to come to our aid and we needed absolutely all the help we could get—at one point my wife, son and I were all three recovering from different surgeries in different hospitals around Philadelphia.
In addition to my family, I depended on the Society almost every day for everything from patient education to helping me find the best possible oncologist for my diagnosis, to emotional and even financial support. My family’s combined medical expenses sometimes ran as high as a quarter of a million dollars per week and while insurance covered most of that the countless co-pays and little expenses very nearly bankrupted us.
Thanks to volunteers like you, the Society was able to give us a grant to help us pay for many of the little medical bills that aren’t covered by insurance. The critical research funds that you’ve been raising help patients like me get the information that we need to enter treatment. The very treatments we undergo continue to evolve and improve as a result of your efforts.
When you are pushing yourselves in training and deciding whether this is worth it or not I hope you carry with you the confidence of knowing that your hard work is making an impact. I’m here today because of the efforts of Team in Training volunteers. I have a post-chemotherapy miracle in the birth of our second son Dermot which was made possible in no small part by the fertility advice from the Society that I mentioned earlier. He and I are both here today because of the volunteers of this great organization. We are about to have our second post-chemo miracle as we await the birth of our daughter, literally any day now.
Recently I celebrated my two and a half year anniversary in remission and I keep getting healthier every day. I thank you and your efforts for my life.
GO TEAM!
Frank Purcell
TNT Team Hero and Survivor"

Frank and his family welcomed Baby Girl Wren Harrington Purcell to the world on 3/27/07 @ 8:39am.

Here's the bottom line, friends. Dan and I have raised over $3,000 so far for the society. But we need $6,000 more to reach our goal. We need EVERYONE'S help to do this. If you've already donated, THANK YOU! Perhaps you will be moved to pass along our website to some generous people you know. If you haven't made your contribution yet, please do so soon-- our May 1st deadline will be here before we know it. We are doing this because want to help patients so that there are more success stories like Frank's. Help us help others! Donate today!

-Sara

Ho-Hum

It's been an uneventful week. I haven't been posting because I've been feeling sort of "blah" lately. I can't really pinpoint it; just busy and stressed at work, tired, etc. Maybe I am just tired of the winter weather-- it's been nicer here, at least. A couple of days ago it was 77 degrees (don't tell Dan, but I turned the air on briefly when I got home. Even Ben the wonder puppy looked hot!)

I know I've mentioned my patient, Faith, and her boyfriend Chris in previous posts. They were in my office for a check up this week. They INSISTED on giving a donation to the Society, which I was REALLY touched by! (THANKS GUYS!) I promised Chris I would let him pick which mile I'm walking for him-- lucky number 7 maybe? He has a couple more lumbar punctures to go, but is feeling really well. He and Faith are looking forward to the baby's birth-- any day now! Since his hair is starting to come back in, we are all wondering who will have more hair; the baby or daddy!?!

I have been doing well with my diet... um, lifestyle change. I am faithfully eating breakfast and writing down what I eat (most of the time). My biggest problem is protein at breakfast and for snacks. Since I am allergic to nuts, I can't just have a handful of almonds or something for energy in the afternoon. Luckily, I can eat peanut butter, but it's kind of starting to get old. I am trying not to snack when I'm not hungry (REALLY hard this week).

Dan was in Tennessee this week for business. It was strange having the house to myself. Ben kept me company and slept on Dan's side of the bed! I am glad that Dan is home now, it seems like there are less creaks and weird house noises when he's home.

Thanks for checking in with us. Thanks to everyone for your support! If you haven't yet made your contribution, feel free to click on the link to the right of this blog! GO TEAM!

-Sara

Nutritionists are not scary...

I went for my first nutrition visit yesterday, and it was pretty good. Basically, she told me that, as far as the weight loss is concerned, the marathon training is just HELPING. I shouldn't consider that to be the primary vehicle for losing weight. So we had to focus on what I was eating, when I was eating it, and WHY I was eating it.

My project, or "homework", for the next two weeks is to keep a food diary. I've done this before with WeightWatchers, but Amy the Nutritionist wants to know what time I am eating and how I feel when I am eating. I also promised to eat breakfast every day for the next 2 weeks. Alot of what she said makes sense-- why eat the majority of your food (ie. dinner) 1-2 hours before bed? I am going to work on fueling my body during the day when I am active, so that it can better use what I am eating instead of hiding it away as fat.

It all boils down to planning ahead! I need to think about things the night before, pack a lunch and snacks, and stick to it. Because I work such long hours, I should basically be eating a mini-lunch around 4:30 so I am not starving when I get home at 8pm. I was so psyched to hear that I get to have a half of a peanut butter sandwhich and a half of a banana on the way home today! Bring on the PB!!

We'll see how I do. It's frustrating, because of all the things I have tried to do in my life, losing weight seems to be the one thing I fail at time and time again. This is the one thing that I have struggled with for probably all of my 30 years on earth (well, maybe for 15 out of the 30 but still)! I am trying to stay positive, and the nutritionist was great about giving me a pep talk. Maybe this I just need this kind of guidance for it to work...

I have eaten more this morning and at lunch, though, than I feel like a person should if she wants to lose weight. But I guess there is a big difference between being full on cucumbers, red peppers, chicken breast, and orange slices instead of popcorn and diet coke!

But I would still give my right arm for an Oreo right now...

-Sara

First Day of Spring

Happy Spring??

Well, last week on Wednesday, temperatures in Philadelphia hit 68 degrees. 48 hours later, we got 4 inches of sleet and 2 inches of snow... they're not kidding when they say March comes in like a lion!

Poor Kate and Paul drove through all that mess to come and visit us! A 4 hour trip on a good day took over 8 hours! We're lucky they didn't turn around after the first 2 hours! To top it all off, our "fun" weekend included activities like "shovel the driveway" and "scrape off the cars". Some friends WE are. We joked around that we were actually taping a new reality show "How much do you love your friends?" Paul and Kate won first prize-- lunch at the Cheesecake Factory!

The snow meant that missing practice on Sunday morning was no big deal. It was cancelled because the trails at Valley Forge weren't cleared off. We'll get back on track with practice this week.

I am beginning to panic a bit about fundraising, if I am being honest in this blog. The prospect of raising this much money, regardless of what an important cause it is for, is really daunting. We know we will be able to do it, but I sometimes wonder what will be harder-- training to walk 13 and 26 miles or raising $9000 to do so? Thank you to everyone that has contributed-- we so appreciate your support!

My brother and sister-in-law are in Australia for the month. I am jealous of their blog! It's much cooler than this one. I need to take blogging lessons from Brent! Though, by the time we get around to that, the marathon might be over, and I will have nothing to blog about anymore! I'll try to remember to take our camera with us to practice this weekend so we have something a little more exciting than written blogs to publish! Thanks for checking in on us!

-Sara

The Inevitable

So I had the um... pleasure?... of serving on a Federal Jury last week and this week. It was enlightening to say the least. So after missing a ton of work for pneumonia, and only being back for 3 weeks or so, I was out again for a week of jury duty. Thank goodness it's over!

A couple of weeks ago, one of my patients (HI FAITH!) mentioned that her boyfriend was sick. When I asked a few more questions, she shared that he has been undergoing treatment recently for Lymphoma. I told her all about TNT, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and our marathon coming up in June. I promised to walk a mile or 7 for him. I had the pleasure of meeting Chris last week. He's finished his chemo, and is feeling well. It was great for me to meet him-- it was a great reminder that all this walking and fundraising is for a good cause!

The list of people I will be walking for just grows. I only hope that someday there will be no list at all! It means we've walked our way to a cure.

Training has been going well. I have decided to do the half marathon. At this point, I would rather finish the half well than spend the next 3 months worried that I won't finish the full. So I have made the inevitable decision. I feel good about it. The bottom line is, I am still raising just as much money for the Society, and 13.1 miles is still a really freakin' long way! This certainly isn't my last marathon with TNT, so I can decide for future races to tackle the full marathon (Disney '08, anyone?).

I am up to 6 miles as of Sunday. Dan did 12-- the guy is amazing! He was walking a 13 minute mile at one point during practice. No fair that he has such long legs! But I am walking away. I got a really big blister at Sunday's practice, and have been hobbling around like a little old lady for the past couple of days. Dr. Scholl's Blister Patches are my new best friends!

Thank you to everyone who has sent in donations recently. I PROMISE, I will get back on track with personal thank you notes. If you haven't received one yet, please know how much we appreciate your contribution, and keep an eye on your mailbox for a real thank you note!

Next weekend, we will miss our first practice of the season. Our dear friends Paul and Kate will be visiting from CT, so we will be having fun with them. (Who said getting up at the crack of dawn on a weekend to walk 12 miles in the cold isn't fun?) We plan to go out and do our long mileage on Sunday afternoon, after Kate and Paul head home. Kate's dad is a cancer survivor, and he's one of my heroes that I'll walk for!

Thanks for checking in on our progress. Every week, I promise myself that I will be better about posting... sigh... better luck this week, I guess!

GO TEAM!
-Sara

Hare

I've been a little reluctant to post anything to the blog. Sara asked me early on to write something about my grandmother, after all she is the reason that we started the training. Well it only took me 7 weeks, who's the tortoise now? I was struggling to come up with the right words. I miss Grandma Burke very much. She died just 5 months before my wedding in August 2002. I had always thought that she and I would dance at my wedding, but leukemia took that away for me. I take some solace from the fast that after her diagnosis Grandma was able to say good-bye, and gave Sara and I her blessing. I truly believe that the one day break in the heat and humidity for our wedding day was because of Grandma.

I'm hoping that the money Sara and I raise will help give someone more time with their Grandma or grandchild. I know that there is a long way to go in the fight against blood cancers, but I need to do this. I need to make sure that no one else has to miss that special someone in their lives. If I can do that maybe I can truly honor my Grandmother's memory.

This weekend's practice was another jump up in mileage. The full marathoners were doing 10 and the halfers were doing 5. We practiced at Valley Forge Park, great for goal setting (I'll walk to that next log cabin...) bad for self esteem. Valley Forge is famous to me for the terrain of the park (read as: hills) and the difficulty of the course (read as: hills, mostly up....sometimes constantly up). As Sara has described before I started walking with her and sped up to my normal pace at the half to the three-quarter mile point. I kept speeding up until I hit my pace, and was at the front of the group. I spent all of the course after the 1.5 mile point on my own. I tried to motivate myself by seeing how far ahead of the group I could stay. This was very difficult. Sara and I train mostly on flat even terrain, think treadmill. So hills some lasting a 1/4 mile or more are no fun.

I did manage to stay ahead of the pack. I didn't realize how far ahead of the pack until I hit the second turn around point at mile 8 and most of the team was still heading out to mile 7. Being a mile ahead, and coming back to Sara pushed me a little extra, and I managed to finish within 5 minutes of the 15 minute a mile pace. A great thing considering the hills and the two refueling breaks!

Sara had a great practice as well! Jerry, the head coach of the walk team, walked back with me for half a mile and could not stop saying how proud of Sara he was. Jerry mentioned her ability to finish strong which bodes well for longer distances and was very encouraged to still see a positive attitude even after the five miles were over. This was Sara's fist time completing the 5 mile loop at Valley Forge, and believe me having a positive attitude after facing the long hill is something I could not manage. Not on my best day. I am very proud of Sara and all of the hard work she has put into the training.

I want to thank you for stopping by, constant reader, please take a moment to remember the reason. Fundraising has slowed down a bit, so if you haven't sent us your contribution yet, we hope you will do that soon. We need to raise $2,000 by mid March so that we can send in our registration for the race. Thank you to everyone who has generously donated thus far! The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society donates 75% of every dollar directly to patients, families, research and development. The other 25% helps with administrative costs, since LLS is a nonprofit organization. Thanks for checking in on our progress! Your support means the world to us!-Dan