This is the second year for ThreeWill to field a Relay for Life Team.  We returned to Alpharetta High School and had a great start to the evening.  Linda and I walked the Survivor’s Walk together, which is what kicks off the event.  I had the honor of carrying the “Celebrate” flag (see  http://www.flickr.com/photos/8849782@N07/3506701787/in/set-72157617776857542/ for a video of Linda and I… youtube version below).

The kids enjoy playing ball on the field.  I had a soccer buddy named Bella (Sean Hester’s daughter) – I had a “ball” kicking with her.   On the day of the event (Friday, May 1) we had a heavy rainstorm during the day and it cleared up just in time for the event.  Everyone had a great time in the daylight and as the sun set that evening you could see thunder in the distance.  This eventually hit the event and at about 11pm we pack up a soaking wet camp. 

The organizers of the event push up the luminary ceremony (lighting lights in Memory or Honor of people effected by Cancer) and we were able to get a lap in before the downpour of rain.  I dedicated my walk (lighted luminary bags) to:

• In Memory of Jim Marks (a friend that I made during my stem cell transplant in Houston).  He passed away the weekend I came back to Houston for a Survivor’s Celebration in Houston (about 6 months post treatment)
• In Honor of Bob Buhay (a friend that had a stem cell transplant after me and is a 2 time Hodkin’s survivor like me)

The rain cut short the event, but we had lots of fun and were able to raise our goal of $3,000 (we always like to do things in 3’s at ThreeWill… including having campsite #3).  The overall event raised over $150,000 that night for the fight against cancer.  Thanks for everyone’s support!

This event (as it did last year) gave me time to reflect on my cancer experience.  My treatment seems so distant, but this walk reminds me of the struggle and pain others have and are going through.  It is too easy to take life for granted.  This event helps ground me in the reality of how fragile life is and celebrate the blessing of life.  Thank God for Life!

You can find pictures of the event on flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/8849782@N07/sets/72157617776857542/

Here is our team page for Relay for Life - http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=13043&team_id=380700

My sister, Deanna Ryan, invited me to present the use of Stem Cell Transplants for curing cancer to her elementary school class. Deanna was teaching a science lesson on stem cells and really thought her class would benefit from learning about how stem cells can be used to cure certain types of cancers. At first, I almost did not take Deanna up on this… but it did not take long for me to see what a great opportunity this was. Not only did I get to the opportunity to maybe inspire a future oncologist, but I was able to see my sister at work with her children. She is such a great teacher. She cares about her kids and is always finding creative ways to teach her class. Her class was well behaved and I could tell that even though she is very firm with her students that her students truly feel that Deanna cares for them.

Dea sent some pictures of the event that I have posted up to Flickr. I also saved a pdf of the presentation (see - My Stem Cell Transplant Presentation). I don’t think this will be the last time I cover a presentation like this. I really enjoyed sharing this with inquisitive children. They were so interested in stem cells and my personal story. The questions I got were very thoughtful questions – even the last question… which really was a tough question. I mentioned a friend (Jim a 24 year old young man for Louisiana) I made that had an interesting treatment of rabbit antibodies (a very interesting story) that were used to prepare for his alleogeneic stem cell transplant. This boy that asked the question at the end wanted to know if my friend was alive today and I had to tell him that Jim’s cancer came back aggressively after his treatment and he passed away about 3 months after his stem cell transplant. That was a sobering final question, but it is the reality of making friends while going through cancer treatment.

Thank you again Dea for this opportunity!

The Relay for Life Event went very well for being our first time to field a team (and setting up a team with less than 2 weeks before the start of the event). Team ThreeWill set a goal of $2,000 and reached this in about a week. See our Team Page for details.

I appreciate all the ThreeWill Associates that were able to make it to the event in such short notice. We had just about the whole ThreeWill gang and were able to keep someone on the track for the entire event (7pm to 7am). The night started off with 2 ThreeWill Survivors in the Survivors Lap. Later in the night we had a luminary ceremony that had a walk in silence to remember those affected by cancer. The lights were turned off while we took laps with candles lit and in the stadium stands you saw the work HOPE spelled out with illuminated bags.

The local high school had a large presence due to the loss of a Senior that died that very morning from cancer. Your heart really went out to those kids. What a tough thing to experience as a teenager…

It was a fun night for the kids of ThreeWill. There was plenty of room to kick the soccer ball and we had some time to play board games. Some of the older children took this time to put in some serious road miles. Their total mileage for the night averaged between 14 and 26 miles. At the end of the event we were starting to drag, but we had 5 of us who made it through the entire night (Eric Bowden, Justin Whitaker, Alex Ryan, Austin Ryan, and myself).

Team ThreeWill looks forward to having this event each year. Thank you for those who made donations towards this worthwhile cause and a special thanks goes out to the people how could join us.

Come back to the blog next week if you would like to see some pictures (I plan to get some pictures posted this weekend).