Why I am running

To put it quite simply, the Leukemia and Lymphoma society has saved my father's life.

Almost 4 years ago, he was at the dentist and the dentist found an abnormal growth in his mouth. Within a matter of a few weeks, he had been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma called Mantle Cell Lymphoma(MCL). This cancer is always found in stage 4, always in your bones, usually in your brain, and has an extremely low survival rate past the 2 year point. He was told by his doctors that the long and incredibly difficult fight for his life would have to begin immediately. When I saw him before he began treatment, I was not sure if I would ever see him again. He didn't want me to sit and wait while he went through all of this. The best thing for him, he said, was for me to go out and play my music and follow my dreams, and let him know what cool things I was up to. My incredibly strong mother, who has had Multiple Sclerosis for 12 years, stayed by his side and kept her sweet smile there everyday to keep him smiling and laughing as she has always done.

He started with an extremely aggressive chemotherapy, which consisted of 24 hour a day drip of various harsh drugs for 4 to 5 days, and then recovery for approximately 3 to 4 weeks. This went on for 9 rounds and approximately 9 months. He made it through the chemo better than anyone had expected. Now, for the next part.

The Stem Cell Transplant.

The recovery from a stem cell transplant can be extremely difficult, particularly when your bone marrow has been basically fried, fried again, and then fried again just to make sure it was burnt. While the procedure was only about 15 minutes, he had to stay in isolation for about 3 weeks afterwards to avoid infection and possible rejection.

Things were going well post transplant and suddenly one day, his blood counts fell off of a cliff.

This is where the Leukemia and Lymphoma society came in to help. To get his numbers back to where they needed to so that he could live any sort of life at all, he would need up to 5-7 shots a week of EXTREMELY expensive drugs to build up his platelettes, red and white blood cells. Since he had already been in the hospital for 9 months, done numerous CAT scans and bone marrow biopsies, and a stem cell transplant, the medical bills were going up at almost an hourly pace.

My parents contacted the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, at the urging of the doctor in my dad's hospital. They were able to reach an advocate in their area, and lo and behold he has been able to get these drugs not simply for a reasonable price, but very often for free. To this day, he is still recieving aide from the LLS. His battle back is ongoing.

It is because of fundraisers like this that he is alive.

I have never run a half marathon in my life, and I can't believe it when I say that my wife Ciara and I just ran 12 miles last Sunday and we ran it in 1 hour and 54 minutes.My goal is to finish in 2 hours or under. Getting pretty close.

As corny as it sounds, when I got tired, I thought about my Dad's 4 year journey, and how he has never given up, no matter how hard it has been.

I am running this race for my Dad, who shows me all the time that no matter what happens in life, there is still hope, and you can still make a positive impact. He is truly an amazing human being, and I am thankful every single day that he is my Dad and that he is here.

Thank you so much for your time and thank you for your support.

It truly means the world to me.

Gabriel