Pedaling to Save Lives

Welcome (back) to my Team In Training home page! For returning visitors, skip this stiff you've already read (and forgotten) and skip to the bottom got the updates and fun stuff.

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Last year I joined Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training, determined to get into shape, complete a 100-mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe, and raise funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). And I accomplished these goals... inspite of TWO flat tires on the Tahoe ride. The greatest reward was, oddly, not the bugs in my teeth, but being part of a great group of people who raised 6.8 million dollars to help fight cancer. I am so impressed with the work that LLS does, I jumped at the chance to participate again this year.

Since its inception in 1949, LLS has invested more than $680 million in cancer treatment research. LLS's Team In Training program (TNT), started in 1988, has helped more than 390,000 people achieve their sadistic dream of completing a marathon, half marathon, triathlon, 100-mile bicycle ride or hike adventure. TNT participants have raised over $950 million to support blood cancer research and patient services. Money raised by TNT helped fund the development of Gleevec, an oral cancer treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and some intestinal tumors. This treatment improved the survival rate of CML from 50% to over 95%.

LLS also supports cancer victims and their families directly with outreach programs, patient education, support programs, and financial assistance when needed.

So why am I, a miniature veterinarian, raising funds for a human disease? (Yes, there is a miniature Veterinary Society.)

• This cancer ticks me off. It preys on the helpless. Leukemia accounts for about 33 percent of cancers in children under the age of 14 and is the leading cause of cancer-related death in children.
• Lymphoma is a common cancer in pets, frequently afflicting young dogs. The more we learn about it on the human side, the more we can also help our 4-legged friends.
• Gleevec and therapies similar to it are being used to treat the most common skin cancer in dogs, mast cell tumor. (Now there's a direct relationship between our fundraising and helping our veterinary patients!)
• Most of all: I am riding for our honored teammate, Kate. She is the adorable girl in the photos above. Kate was diagnosed with leukemia just before her third birthday. The photo above on the left is of her celebrating her 4th birthday in January of this year. She deserves to celebrate many more. With everyone's help, she can.

I am asking you to help me be an everyday mini-super-hero for people with cancer by donating to LLS through my Team in Training efforts. Any contribution is helpful and well spent; 76% of any donation goes directly to supporting the LLS directives.

You can make a donation by clicking the "donate now" button on this page. If you do not wish to donate online, please send me an email at pattyfin62@gmail.com for instructions on other ways to donate.

In turn, I will honor the individuals battling lymphoma and blood cancers by riding each week through muck, yuck, and rain to again conquer Tahoe. (Uh, yeah, I'm taking extra tire tubes this time.) Please check back to see my progress and learn more about little Kate. Thanks for your support!

Trish

5/15/10: 70-miler last weekend and 80 this weekend. And I feel pretty good and think I am ready for Tahoe. I am staving off peanut butter until I a mini-findraising goal of $2700. Many thanks to my wonderful Dad and sister Carol for getting me $350 dollars closer to the jar of PB, and to my friends Linda F, Linda, M, Robyn, Ron, Matt, and Jay for their support. Then I still have another $1000 to go after that. Any ideas what I should give up next for incentive to reach $3700?

5/6/10 Update: I haven't updated in a while -- many other distractions in the last 4 weeks and I have not put in t he miles I need to. But now I need to kick back into gear. Our friends with cancer don't get a break. They fight a battle everyday regardless of other obligations and weather. And the least I can do is not take a nap and pound the pavement to support them.