I'm alive because of running.

I was diagnosed with advanced stage Hodgkin’s Disease on Valentine’s Day, 2007. Hodgkin’s Disease is a fairly uncommon cancer of the immune system. I had a mass that was bigger than a basketball in my abdomen and extensive disease through my chest. I was dangerously anemic and had SVC syndrome. The only good thing about Hodgkin’s Disease is even people like me with disease literally everywhere still have at least a chance to obtain remission and perhaps even cure. I finished eight months of chemotherapy in October 2007. I have now been in remission for a year.

I owe my life to my oncologist, the nurses, my family, and ….. to running. If not for running, I am certain I wouldn’t have survived chemotherapy. Running taught me to endure challenges, to endure through difficult periods one second at a time if necessary. I wanted to create something that illustrated how much running means to me.

The summer of 2007, I was short of breath from the chemotherapy’s effects on my lungs. All I wished for was to be able to run again. Every morning when I wake up to run before work I think to myself, “Self, you are alive and in remission … remember last summer when you couldn’t run and all you wanted in the world was to run? Well, we’re going to go do your favorite thing in the world. Rise and shine.”

These are the Mizunos I wore out running last summer … my Relay for life medal … a yellow Livestrong bracelet, a red “Relentless” bracelet from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society … and the trophies … those are race awards I’ve won since getting into remission.

Anyway this is an intensely personal photograph … definitely not my usual subject matter.