Why I do what I do...

I received this email today and it touched me in such a profound way. People always ask me why I do what I do. Why do you get up and run when it is 8 degrees out on a Saturday morning? How can you run all of those miles? They tell me I am crazy. Well when I read something like this, to me what I do seems so minuscule. And it is the reason that I keep fighting.

I wanted to share this email with all of you to help you all understand why I participate with TNT and why I will continue to do so until there is a cure. You have all supported me throughout my endeavors and I want to let you know what you have done to help keep me moving forward in the right direction. THANK YOU to each and every one of you for everything you have done for me. You all inspire me to keep going.

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Two years ago, on what I like to imagine was a clear, early-spring evening, a commercial aircraft departed from a city somewhere in Europe. Its destination: Boston, Massachusetts. On the plane, sitting at the feet of a courier whose sole purpose was to deliver his precious cargo, was an ordinary looking plastic cooler. Inside the cooler, surrounded by smoky liquid nitrogen, were two pouches, each about the size of a plastic sandwich bag. They contained nothing less spectacular than my husband’s future. He was fighting a battle against a virulent and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and the stem cells contained in the bags were on their way to Brigham and Woman’s hospital to be transplanted into his bloodstream.
As the plane flew over the Atlantic, I sat in the subdued light of the intensive care unit, surrounded by the beeping of monitors and my husband’s steady but labored breathing. In a rare moment of solitude, uninterrupted by nurses or doctors, I thought about the moment nine months earlier when the bottom fell out of our world.
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During a family vacation in the summer of 2002, my husband, forty-eight years-old and the picture of health, was nursing a nagging pain in the middle of his back, just above his left kidney. Thinking it was “too much tennis” (we were at a tennis resort in Florida and the service drills were killer) Bob spent much of the week lying on the floor of the condo doing a series of stretches to work out the kinks. The pain became worse after our arrival home, and Bob sought advice from our family doctor. “It sounds like a kidney stone”, the doc decided, and said he thought it would pass on its own. But the pain increased in spite of mega doses of morphine, and the doctor ordered a CT scan. On the following evening, the phone rang with the news that there was an area behind Bob’s left kidney containing inflamed lymph nodes. The doctor scheduled a biopsy for the following Monday. I walked into the room as Bob talked to the doctor on the phone and all I heard was “could it be cancer?” I stopped in my tracks. I was stunned by the question which, until that moment, had never occurred to me.
That weekend, Bob went to the Emergency Room in excruciating pain. A surgeon performed a needle biopsy to obtain samples of lymphatic tissue. Our worst fears were confirmed. My husband was diagnosed with highly aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was admitted to the hospital for the first in a series of what was hoped to be four or six chemotherapy cycles that would, according to the oncologist, most likely cure the disease. We hung on to those words as a hope that the nightmare would soon end and our lives would eventually return to normal.
From that moment on, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society became my ally in the fight to save my husband’s life. I scoured the website for information about his disease, stories of patients with similar diagnoses that were eventually cured (reinforcing my notion that this was a difficult journey with a happy ending), and resources that I could contact for treatment options. We were directed to the Dana Farber Cancer Care Center and Dr. Corey Cutler, a hematological oncologist.
When the chemo regimen proved to offer only a short-lived remission, Dr. Cutler told us about a treatment option: an allogeneic stem-cell transplant. Derailed but not defeated by this news, the hospital made plans to find a suitable donor. The transplant would take place at Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston.
The Society stepped in to help. The transplant required a month-long stay in the hospital which was two hours away from our home. I needed to be with my husband, but our nine year-old daughter needed my care as well. While I made plans (rivaling those of any wartime Army general) to provide caregivers and transportation on the home front, the Society offered financial assistance for my accommodations at Shannon’s Place (a communal housing facility for families of patients undergoing cancer treatment). It is one of the many ways the funds raised in Team in Training events are used, and to families facing financial as well as emotional challenges from this type of illness, it can be a godsend.
The transplant date arrived. Everything was in place. As we walked into the hospital from the parking garage, I glanced back at Bob. He wiped tears from his face. Perhaps he was thinking it might be a long time before he would breathe fresh air again. Or worse, that he might be breathing fresh air for the very last time.
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The cells arrived at Bob’s bedside in late evening of March 28th without ceremony or fanfare. After months of waiting, the treatment was about to be administered as simply as if it were just another bag of red blood cells. Only its pale gold color, distinguished by an almost ethereal iridescence indicated that it was something different; more important.
As the bags slowly emptied into Bob’s veins, the cells began their journey to the heart of the bone marrow where, if all went as planned, they would slowly divide and multiply forming the basis of a new immune system; one free of the deadly cancer cells that resided like squatters, feared and unwanted, and unwilling to leave. It was nothing short of a miracle, this renewal, and our hopes were high that the days and weeks ahead would herald the beginning of a life free from illness and the worry that had become a member of our family.
The miracle never happened. Bob died on the 17th day post-transplant, of complications from of one of the drugs necessary to combat the potential rejection of the donor cells. His transplant showed all signs of having successfully engrafted, and I often think of the irony of such a “re-birth” even as his body was failing and unable to withstand the rigors of the treatment.
In the two years since his death, I have learned to play the role of both Mom and Dad. I spend lots of time trying to be a good example for our daughter and we often ask the question, What would Dad do?” when we are stuck trying to make a difficult decision. Sometimes we even laugh as we conjure up his responses. I have managed to keep our household afloat and some might even say it is thriving. I returned to college and this spring and completed the bachelor’s degree that I never finished. Now I have embarked on the quest to run this marathon.
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My husband was a remarkable man. He was smart and funny, and while he wasn’t quite sure he would be a good father (so we waited until he was 40 to have a child!) he was a natural at the role. Our daughter, Mackenzie, adored her father, and she recalls him with a mixture of love and sorrow that she will carry with her forever. Bob was a gifted singer, and arguably the best friend one could ask for. He hated spiders, but I know he would have walked across a forest floor teeming with them to help someone he loved.
Bob endured the ravages of his treatment with grace and courage. He was a generous soul who believed that family and good friends were the true measure of a man’s wealth and spent the months before his death mending a rift with his sister that had separated them far too long. As a result, our family has healed and she has become my closest friend and a loving aunt to Mackenzie. It was his gift to us.
I am not a runner. In the months ahead, as I subject my body to the rigors of training, I will be buoyed by the memory of this wonderful man, and the many like him who have succumbed to the ravages of these debilitating and too-often fatal blood cancers. The marathon will be grueling. Though I know there will be moments on October 23rd when I may believe I cannot lift my leg to take another step, I will remember the quiet grace with which my husband endured his illness. Then I’ll take that next step. Most of all, I will run with the ultimate hope that the dollars selflessly given in his memory by nearly a hundred supporters will make it possible for others to live a life after cancer. A most tender mercy, indeed.
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As you all know, I began this journey in my life because of Jeff and sometimes I ask myself "What would Jeff do?" There is one thing that always comes to mind, so I leave you with this closing word: ENDURE.

Sincerely,

Stacey Selleck