Riding for Roses

Apparently my Google page rank is just high enough that some people find my blog on purpose. Two people found the 24 Hour Fitness entry, leading to an exciting July.

First, Paul Walhus, who attended the 24 Hour Fitness event contacted me with pictures. Paul was organizing Tour Watch 2005 – an event at Austin’s Central Market to watch the Tour de France. I hooked up to do cancer awareness raising and fundraising for Spencer’s attempt to raise $25,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and a private ride with Lance. Second, a producer working for the Discovery Network on a show about fans of Lance got in touch with me. For extra coincidence points, I had just added email contact information to my blog which enabled that connection. They were coming to Austin to tape and wanted to include us. Their visit was to be before and during the start of the Tour de France.

The Discovery crew came and interviewed all of us several times, filmed our day to day activities, observed at a class we took at Wonders and Worries, followed us to a visit to the oncologist, and gave Spencer an afternoon special tour of the Driskill Hotel. Children’s Hospital of Austin is very supportive of the media attention and the Discovery Network crew work with PR and Child Life specialists in setting up the filming so that there are no privacy problems. At the oncologist visit, Spencer’s counts had plunged faster than we had expected and he went on limited exposure restrictions. He still wanted to visit Tour Watch. He was amazing. He played computer games with kids and our State Representative, Mark Strama. He interview with several TV shows, including Dutch television, and was also mentioned in the Austin American-Statesman article about cancer survivors inspired by Lance and the Tour Watch event. In addition to all of the awareness raising, Spencer managed to raise several thousand dollars in donations to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.