Racing in Honor of . . .

In all of the craziness of race prep, I often forget that I am doing this not just for myself. This weekend, I will be thinking of all of our team honorees and their families. And I will also be racing in honor of:

1) Jasmina - 5 year old god-daughter of my friends in NYC. She has been fighting Leukemia and is awaiting a bone marrow transplant. Here is an update from my friends:

Hi Melissa,

Our pleasure. Jasmina is feeling quite well. I saw her at the hospital on Saturday. She wanted me to hold her hands and lift her as high as possible while she jumped. Not exactly the picture of a sickly child. She tired me out. The only negative side effect was that her long, candy-apple red wig kept falling off. They still have not found a perfect bone marrow match for her, although one of the drives we did in her name turned up a perfect match for another patient on the waiting list. The cycles of chemo cannot be expected to keep the disease at bay indefinitely (she has gone through five or six already), so they are thinking about alternative (i.e., less than perfect-match) transfer procedures. If they go that route, they may look to her biological mother to be the donor (assuming she is healthy enough), or another donor who has already been identified as having a significant number of matching genetic components with Jasmina. They may have to move her to Philadelphia or Memphis, where they are doing trials of that nature.

Good luck this weekend!!

2) Buck Lauer - My friends father-in-law who was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma this year. He has been under going chemo for the last few months. Hoping he's doing well.

3) Arylene (Kline?) - My friend Rebecca's grandmother. Arylene was diagnosed with leukemia about a month ago and passed away last week. Rebecca raced with us last year and wasn't able to join us this year. So I am racing for her and in her grandma's honor.


I'll be thinking of them all this weekend and during the race. Thanks to everyone who has supported me and LLS. I hope that in the future I won't have any honorees because we find a cure for blood cancers. Until then, let's keep up the good work.

And if you'd like to help Jasmina, please register for the bone marrow donor registry. More info here: http://www.oneforjasmina.com/

Peace and gratitude.
m.