Kyle’s cousin, Heidi, kindly donated to my marathon efforts and put a call out on her blog to solicit even more. We are about halfway through the training process, which means I desperately need to get busy raising the $1600 commitment I made to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In honor of the halfway point, I am running in the Youngstown 1/2 Marathon this Sunday…that’s 13.1 miles (half of the 26.2 I’m running in May). Sometimes I can’t believe I am actually doing this (and enjoying it), but having people like my mother-in-law to train for brings it all into perspective. The challenge I am undertaking is one that I chose, one that will culminate in an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, one that will stay with me always…it’s the men, women and children who battle cancer, who fight every day, who had no say in their plight, they are the ones that push me to go that extra mile, to keep running when my body says stop, to stop whining and start focusing…they are the heroes.

So, I’m asking you (ok…I’m begging you) to please donate what you can. I have witnessed what research can do. Less than 20 years ago, my mother-in-law’s stepbrother fought leukemia and lost. He had a bone marrow transplant and passed away from complications resulting from it. Research and advancement in bone marrow transplant procedures would most probably have changed his outcome had he been diagnosed today. Due to extensive investment in research, the overall survival rate of leukemia has tripled in the last 40 years from 14% in 1960 to over 46% in 2003. My mother-in-law is doing well and actually working again, less than a year post-transplant, and she is alive today because of the advances in treatment that research provides (although her strength of spirit had something to do with it as well).

This is a worthy cause considering that over 100,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma this year alone. Here’s a breakdown of how your donation can make a difference. Every dollar helps, and a cure is on the horizon because of it.

$1.00 a mile will equal a donation of $26.20, which could pay for the cost of a patient’s chemotherapy drug prescription co-payment.

$2.00 a mile will equal a donation of $52.40, which could register one person to be a bone marrow donor.

$75 could provide HLA (bone marrow) typing for a family member of a patient with leukemia.

$150 provides 10 patients with access to a web-conference to learn about their specific blood cancer.

$300 will train 25 peer volunteers who can provide emotional support to newly diagnosed patients.

$500 could provide patient aid to a person with leukemia or a related cancer for a year.

Thanks for listening. If you can donate, please do. If you can’t, please keep the cause in your thoughts.