This morning the media team breakfasted in Blythe, CA after a short night’s sleep in a Comfort Suites hotel. We sipped our coffee and strategized about how to tell the story of our racers, Marshall Reeves and Rob Decou as they rode through the desert.
A middle aged man approached us asking about our 3000 Mile to a Cure T-shirts. In a quaking voice he told us the story of his best friend, a teacher,who’d just had his third surgery to remove a brain tumor. As he showed us cell phone pictures of the man and his young family, grief and frustration emanated from him.
The desire to do something, to take any action, to save a loved one is so familiar. Mostly all we can do is sit by and watch them slide away from us – first surgery, then radiation and chemo, more surgery, more doctor’s visits, more medicine. We hope, we support, we love, we pray, but these things seem so quiet. At times there is is a desire to hack at and punch and tear the horrible, evil cancer apart, screaming a warrior’s cry all the while.
Race Across America is a tough, physical battle. Rob and Marshall fight for us. They FIGHT. They fight the mountains, the heat, the nausea the exhaustion.. They’re on our team, doing what we cannot, fighting cancer with all the physicality they have. They will not stop.
Cancer sufferers and your families, we’re in your corner. We’re with you. Hang in there.