Riding for Roses

Today we are back from our vacation and Spencer started his second cycle of delayed intensification. The good news is that after eight more weeks of this, he should be on maintenance for the remainder of his treatment which will be in late 2007 or early 2008. The bad news is he has eight weeks of intense chemotherapy and a resulting immune system crash to end his summer, which had barely begun.

I don’t think I actually wrote about this on my blog since I did not want to curse it. We are on vacation. A quick taste of what’s up with the possibility that I will elaborate later. We had dinner with His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan and Spencer gave him a few liveStrong wrist bands. We attended my 25 year Deerfield Academy reunion and delivered thanks to my Deerfield classmates who, so far, have donated over $1500 to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We had a family reunion on Sunday in Stuyvesant Falls, NY. We are now getting ready for bed while I quickly catch up on email at the Harding House guest house in Cambridge.

As of right now, Spencer has $3,656.13 and we need to reach $3,750 in fundraising by 6 AM tomorrow. That puts him halfway to the low goal of $7,500. Please help today by making a small donation to support cancer survivors and help Spencer reach his goal of raising $25,000 before he celebrates his one year cancer diagnosis anniversary.

I received a terrific note from a friend the other day. It expressed compactly a number of feelings that I want to comment on. So I asked his permission to post the text and let it age in my mind a little bit to develop more reactions….

We had a National Cancer Survivors Day celebration this afternoon at Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church. Thanks to more volunteers than I can name, it came off beautifully. We had basic summer picnic food with salads, potato salad, cole slaw, hot dogs (and tofu substitutes for the vegetarians), and several desserts. We had face painting, [...]

Sunday, June 5, 2005, from noon to 3 PM, we are having a National Cancer Survivors Day celebration of life at Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church at 3315 El Salido Parkway; Cedar Park, TX. We will have food, information tables about cancer survivorship issues, kid activities, and a donation table for Spencer’s effort to raise $25,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation….

Lloyd is 86 and has been living with prostate cancer for 5 years. We met Lloyd when Spencer was passing out LiveStrong wrist bands and Peloton Project donation forms at Alamo Mobility Austin when we were picking up Rachel’s new van. This was on May 20, the day after Spencer saw Lance and he [...]

Spencer and I are trying to raise $25,000 for the Ride for the Roses. Through luck and random acts of kindness, we had $916.13 of donations before we really started fundraising on May 24. Now the rubber meets the road. Or not. You can donate to support cancer survivors and Spencer’s attempt to raise $25,000 and ride 40 miles in the Ride for the Roses to celebrate his one year anniversary of being diagnosed with leukemia. What a party.