Hope dashed, not crushed and then restored. Short of stature she was a gifted runner, fell of pep and cute as a button! “You should have a doctor look at that bump on your hand,” a classmate said and in a few days it all came crashing down. “You have a deadly cancer in a bone of your hand,” the doctor said. “The only hope to cure this is to completely remove the cancer which means you will lose a finger and that bone in your hand. What a load; what a burden; how could a sophomore in high school be expected to process such news alone? She didn’t have to as family, friends and local runners rallied to her cause and provided the tangible and intangible things she needed to get through the year of surgery and chemo and more importantly to her a year of not running. And yet she survived. The surgery was a breeze compared to showing up at the hospital for chemo with a lot of pep only to leave feeling like you had just been dragged through the desert. The bright royal blue hair that fell out when chemo took its effect now started to come back dark and curly. She got permission to run and gradually made it back to the level she left. I had a dream, I really did have this dream, early in the days of her treatments that she would hand the baton off in the 4 x 800 meters relay to win a state championship and believe me it happened! I was there and saw the whole thing. She went on to race in college and is now a beautiful young woman with three fingers on one hand and a story to tell. Thank you God.

I'm shaving my head to raise money for childhood cancer research! Did you know that kids' cancers are different from adult cancers? It's true. And childhood cancer research is extremely underfunded. So I decided to do something about it by raising money for cures.

Now I need your help! Will you make a donation? Every dollar makes a difference for the thousands of infants, children, teens, and young adults fighting childhood cancers.