Help Me Save Lives!

Let's Help Save Lives - for My Dad and For Others Fighting Blood Cancer

(Picture Clockwise From Top Left: My Incredible Dad, "Pinkie" and my fellow Team in Training Mentors at the 10-mile finish line, my 'Honors' shirt (more names to be added), Me and Hailey Plunkett - - honored teammate and Leukemia Survivor.)

Update December 6th -- OMG! Yesterday I completed my 18 mile training. My feet are blistered, but I am feeling better and better about completing the marathon which is just about 1 month away. Like the Little Engine kept saying "I think I can. I think I can," I am pretty sure I am going to be mumbling my personal mantra out loud the last couple of miles --- "I know I can do it, because I know why I do it."

Update October 11th - A million thank you's to those that accepted my Pink Wig Challenge. Because of your generosity I raised over $900 in 3 days to combat blood cancers and honor those affected by all cancers. Borrowing from one of the Team in Training slogans, I will summarize my experience as this "If you think running 10-miles with a Pink Wig is hard, you should try Chemotherapy." Substitute "training for a marathon" for 'pink wig" and you will know the thought I always keep in my mind when the sun gets too hot and my feet start to blister. It would be my fondest wish to know that the dollars we raise together give the next person diagnosed with cancer a treatment option that doesn't make them feel the effects of chemo.

Update October 7th - Hoping to train 10 miles this Saturday in a Pink wig in honor of all the women who have made their mark on my life and have also fought Breast Cancer (Grandmothers Minnie and Sylvia, Aunt Marcia, cousin Risa, Lee Howell and Teri Meltzer to name a few.) All you have to do is get me to my 10th donation (starting today, ending October 9th). I promise to post pictures!

September 30th - Up to 7 miles. Just 19 more to go :)

Well here I go again, training for the Disney Marathon with Team in Training... what am I crazy? Yes, yes I am! Crazy about curing blood cancers like the one that took my father from me over 10 years ago.

How can me running a marathon cure blood cancers you ask. It's easy, I run (or run/walk - I mean seriously its going to be a lot of miles,) you sponsor me, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society takes that money and funds researchers that find cures for blood cancers and provides support (both financial and emotional) to patients and families dealing with their diagnosis and treatment.

Last year while I was training for my first Disney 1/2 Marathon I learned that LLS had funded a new drug called Velcade, the first new treatment in more than a decade for Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) - the cancer that my father Bobby died from. I've since met a MCL survivor using this drug, his name is Mike and he is not only one of our honored teammates, but he will be running the Disney with me. I've also come to know a 5 year old little boy named Dominic who is dealing with Leukemia. His family is at every Team in Training event, rallying the team letting us know how LLS is helping his family get through this challenge in their lives. I see how the money we raise is making a difference. I can see it , I can hug it, I will feel it when I cross the finish line.

Last year I was so blessed to take part in my first Team in Training event, raising close to $4,000 for LLS. That January morning in Orlando was a crisp 45 degrees (it was 4 am when we got to the staging area, I told you I was crazy.) There was a full moon and I knew it was my father's spirit there with me and my sister at the starting line. The 13.1 miles was not always easy, but with every mile I felt the love of the people who supported me with their generous donations and encouragement throughout my training, the people cheering for me along the course because they saw my purple TNT shirt and the spirit of my daddy driving me toward that finish line. I cannot begin to express the emotions that washed over me when I did cross that finish line. How I wished I did not have such a compelling reason to raise money for LLS, how proud I was that I did.

Please join me this year in saving lives by helping me blow away my fundraising goal. Whether it's $5 or $500, it will make a difference. If you prefer to make a donation check, please send a check made out to The Leukemia Lymphoma Society and mail it to me at: 927 S . 13th Ave, Hollywood, FL 33019.

I am just starting my training and while it seems crazy right now that I will be able to complete a marathon in January, I know I can do it, because I know why I do it. Please read further on below about my incredible Dad and why I am so dedicated to this cause.

With love and thanks,

Cheryl

I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. If you think someone you know would like to support me in my efforts please forward them my link. Most of All, thank you for your support!

This is the story about my inspiration:

For those of you who knew my dad, nothing I say here will surprise you. In fact, you might even feel I couldn’t say enough to capture his spirit, his intense pure love and his generousity. For those people in my life who never met him, I only hope you can know him through me as that is my debt to him. Bobby Bacher, or Robert as his large and loving family would call him, had the kindest, sweetest nature. He was the easiest person to be around. He instantly made people feel comfortable …in fact I’d often come home to find my friends hanging out with my Dad (not particularly caring if I was coming home soon.) As a child he always made me feel incredibly important and I know now that it was not because he constantly told me I was smart, pretty or funny – it was because he was always interested in what I had to say. He was the best listener. My dad could always be counted on to help a friend in need and was astonishingly perceptive to what people needed; he was amazingly giving of his time and his friendship. We shared a mutual love for so many things, from the New York Rangers to NY Museums, history, books, sushi … although I’ve often thought that I may have loved all of these things because it made me closer to him. He was incredibly funny but not always on purpose. He did a mean River Dance and could make you wet yourself imitating the Wendy’s commercial with the Russian Fashion Show (Evening Wear!) He was a true friend to many, but I always thought he was my best friend. I know now and have known always that I was so lucky to have this man as my father.

Even as a young child, I had an awareness and fear of cancer. My paternal grandmother Minnie died of it when I was 5 and my maternal grandmother Sylvia had breast cancer in her late sixties. Truly nothing though could prepare me for the cancer I came to know once my Dad was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma called Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) in January 1998. New Years 1998, my Dad was a healthy, employed, productive 56 year old with a head of hair that Patrick Dempsey would have envied. A few short weeks later he was transformed by the disease and the treatments into someone who was hard to recognize. There were terrifying times during the initial months of his illness that the chemo and the cancer left him at the brink of death. But the cancer didn’t know who it was dealing with and my father, frail but beaming, walked me and my mom down the aisle when I married Scott in May of 1998. To give you some perspective of the ravages of his disease, when Riley and Cooper look at our wedding pictures they confuse my father with my grandfather who was 83 at the time. I don’t think my father felt anything but joy that day as he danced with me to “Daddy’s Little Girl†and sang every word off-key with a sweetness I will never forget. Shortly after my wedding the doctor proclaimed him in remission and recommended he receive a stem-cell transplant as his best chance of long-term survival. He bravely and confidently headed off to MD Anderson in Houston and allowed his immune system to be completely wiped out so that it could be rebuilt with healthy stem-cells. Even in isolation he continued to joke through the window with my mom and aunt – wanting to make things easier on them. In September, he left Houston and returned home. I wish at this point I could say things continued to get better. But the reality is that his immune system never did rebound and the devastating effects of his treatments caused him to spend the next few months in pain and zapped him of his amazing spark. It dulled his spirit and his mind. The disease had succeeded in doing what my Father had fought against for so long and what to us was as painful as seeing him suffer physically. Just after midnight on January 11th my Dad died, the disease had literally drained his life force from him.

As hard as it was to share those details, it’s much harder to imagine another person I love suffering from this disease or see a friend or loved one go through the pain I have experienced. This is why I am honoring my father’s memory and taking the opportunity to do what I can do to combat Lymphoma and other blood cancers, through raising funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.