Why I run

Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow, the spongy center of bones where our blood cells are formed. The disease develops when blood cells produced in the bone marrow grow out of control.

Lymphoma is the name for a group of blood cancers that develop in the lymphatic system. The two main types are Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

Critical treatment innovations have originated through blood cancer research, including radiation, chemotherapy, stem cell transplantation, and new-targeted therapies. Significant progress continues to be made to improve the lives of people living with blood cancer:

• Nearly 50% of all FDA-approved cancer drugs during the past decade were for blood cancer:
• Five of those drugs have been approved for use in additional cancer indications; clinical trials are underway for the other 14 FDA-approved treatments for additional indications.
• Survival rates for children with lymphocytic leukemia (the most common childhood cancer) have risen from 3% to 90% since the 1960s.
• Hodgkin lymphoma patient survival rates have doubled (now 88%) since the 1960s

http://www.lls.org/

Since I've become involved with the Light the Night, I've met so many people whose lives have been touched by some form of leukemia or lymphoma.  One of my team leads/mentors at Thomson Reuters, Carla, lost her son Will after a 6 month battle with AML (acute myeloid leukemia) in 2009.  My good friend Kent and his wife Rhonda lost their mother and mother-in-law, Tudie, in 2010 to lymphoma.  Those are a couple of the losses... the success stories are found in my friend and Minnesota Light the Night Campaign Manager, Heidi G. and 2010 Honored Hero Noah - both now considered cancer free.  Someone said that I'm blessed to not have a personal connection to the diseases, but they were wrong.  I do, through each and every one of my friends, through Heidi and Noah and through everyone whose lives have been disrupted by the diagnosis of cancer.

I will run for those who can't because they're undergoing chemotherapy or undergoing a bone marrow transplant
 .
I will run for those who can't because they are sitting next to their loved one, hoping and praying that the treatments are successful.

I will run for those who are grieving and for those who are rejoicing.

I believe that by supporting the mission of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, we can make a difference in eradicting cancer from our vocabulary, for that reason I will run.  Because someone's life may depend on it.