WELCOME TO MY TEAM IN TRAINING (TNT) HOME PAGE!

Hi everyone!

Thank you for visiting my page! So in honor of what would have been my mom's 61st birthday today, I made a pretty exciting, scary and challenging decision. I decided to run a full marathon in Puero Rico on March 13th, 2016, to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of my mother. Please read my story and  I hope by reading you decide to make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to either me or my friend, Danielle, who is on my team as well.

Many of you know that last year I raised money for the Light the Night Walk in support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) for my mom, JoAnne. All of you gave me an incredible amount of support, and I could not be more grateful. I raised the third highest amount of donations in the Madison area. I was overwhelmed and humbled by the support. Now, once again I am asking for your help, support, and donations if you so choose to help beat blood cancers.

My motivation for raising this money for LLS is yet again my wonderful mother, JoAnne. Last year on June 6, 2014, my mom was diagonosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. As you can imagine, our family was quite shaken up with this diagnosis. My mom was the healthiest 59 year old I knew. She ate incredibly healthy, exercised and had an incredible spirit. However, for some unknown reason, my mom was the one that was diagnosed with this blood cancer. My mom was a fighter. No one could deny that. The entire time that she was going through a variety of different drugs, chemos, trial drugs and trips to Chicago she kept a positive attitude. Everyone used to say they would not have even known that she was sick. That's probably true. My mom never used to complain about anything apart from me leaving my shoes out in the kitchen when I came home from work. She never felt sorry for herself for getting this disease and just kept pushing on. 

In late August, my mother was finally ready to receive her bone marrow transplant. Everyone was excited about it. She had gone through a lot to get to this point and everyone was hopeful it would work. Friends, family and coworkers had all been praying for this moment and praying that this worked out. When she originally received the transplant, everything looked great. The first week or two she looked like she had not even received the transplant. She was playing Words with Friends on her iPad and we were talking about friends and family. Then she became more sick. She started to lose her hair and she started to lose her appetite. As time went on she started dealing with more and more complications from the transplant. Nurses and doctors were constantly at her bedside trying to help figure out the solution to getting her better. One Friday afternoon they did a bone marrow biopsy to find out if there was any leukemia left in her system. On Monday we found out that the leukemia had come back. This was a complete blow to the stomach for everyone. Everyone truly believed that she was going to fight this thing off. My mom had a made the decision right away when she was diagnosed that if the leukemia came back after her bone marrow transplant, she was just going to live out the rest of her life surrounded by family and friends. So that is what she decided to do.

On Thursday, October 8th, my mom was moved to Angel's Grace Hospice in Oconomowoc, WI. It was a lovely facility with a wonderful staff. She had an overwhelming and supportive amount of visitors. She spent her last days in the hospice talking with friends and family while still keeping up that sassy, spunky and caring attitude. On the morning of Wednesday, October 14th, my mom took her last breath on this earth. It was the hardest day of my life. The one thing that did comfort me was that when my family and I came back from breakfast after waiting for the funeral home to arrive, we went back to see her for the last time. When we saw her there was a huge smile on her face. A smile that told us she was finally at peace and where she wanted to be. I will miss her every day for forever, but I am glad that she has found her peace.

The reason I am running a full marathon:

Obviously there is a reason I decided to run a full marathon in my mother's honor and tell you this story. One of those reasons is that I want to raise money for LLS to help fight these blood cancers every single day. I do not want a single other person to have to go through losing someone as special as my mother from leukemia. I would wish that on no one. 

The other reason I have decided to run a full marathon is because I think it is a cool metaphor for my mom's fight with leukemia. If you do not know this about me, I have ran two half marathons before, and both times I finished I told myself there is no way I would ever run a full marathon. I can honestly tell you that I am NOT looking forward to it. I am not looking forward to getting further into my training schedule and running 18, 19, and 20 mile runs on the weekends. I am not looking forward to training in the winter in Wisconsin. I am not looking forward to my feet hurting and my toenails potentially falling off. So why am I doing it? To honor my mother's fight against cancer. To honor all the times that she had to do something that made her sick, or tired, or weak. That is why I am doing it. If my wonderfully positive mother can fight until her very last breath, then I can sure run 26.2 miles in her honor and go through 1/100th of the pain that she had to endure for 497 days. 

I hope after reading my story and my motivation that you choose to donate to LLS. One of my best friends, Danielle, is also running the marathon in Puerto Rico with me. She has already ran a marathon and she will be my amazing support system through all of this. We are collectively trying to raise $5,800 ($2,900 a piece), so ANY donation would be incredibly appreciated. If I have already met my goal, PLEASE donate to my friend Danielle, or you can donate to our team page and your donation will be split to us equally!

Thank you so much if you have read all of this. Now let's beat off these blood cancers once and for all!

Megan