10 laps for life

Friday night was the Relay for Life to end cancer at Millenium Park in Orleans. Both my neighbour T and my neighbours C and F's daughter and her spouse were walking all night to raise money to fight my disease. Just to prove how everyone you know has been affected by it in some way or another. D, C. de Lune and I went out to show support for our friends and stayed for 2 hours. It was an experience I'll never forget. All those people camped out, walking and running lap after lap to help me. I know, they weren't there helping me directly, and yet, they were --I have directly benefited from that support. If there's one thing I can say about cancer treatments is that it's obvious just how far raised money goes. This new chemo I'm on, the more effective yet less side-effecting one, was still in clinical trials in 2003! Think about it: when we were kids cancer was a death sentence. Now it's like a bad dream, a sickness that can practically be cured if caught early enough. I will not die from this, I'm certain of it. C de Lune was amazing. I told her in the car what this event was for and when I used the C word for the first time she said "I know cancer mummy". No kidding. Then when I told her the point of the Relay was to help heal people like me, she told her dad to drive faster! My kid. Gotta love her. But the best of it all was how she ran 10 laps for me, on her own, faster than most adults, not showing any signs of stopping. People were watching her, shock on their face. And she would have kept going. Words cannot express just how proud I was. Next year, she says, we are running all night.