Dear Friends,
At the last minute I have decided to ride tomorrow in this year's Pan-Mass Challenge. I was not planning to ride this year because I haven't done much training and wasn't sure I would be up to it.
A very close, life long friend of Wendy and mine was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago. He is my age, never smoked, maintained overall good health - just incredibly unlucky. After the terrible news of the initial diagnosis, he got some good news. He was a match for some modern treatments that could likely fight the disease and prolong his life. These treatments would not cure the disease and would likely only be effective for a few years but hopefully, by the time they stopped working there would be new treatments. Thanks to the money raised for cancer research, he has been able to be treated by experimental drugs that have worked these past years.
He and his family have been fighting this disease with the constant specter of further bad news, living scan to scan. Well, now it appears that we have reached the time when the treatments are not as effective—and now they need to try new methods to attempt to keep the cancer at bay.
My friend did not have a choice to fight cancer. He did not train to fight cancer. He has faced an epic life and death challenge and has done so with incredible strength, courage and tenacity. And I decided not to ride this year because I had not trained enough? Because it might be a little uncomfortable? That is ridiculous. So I am riding. And I deserve no medal for doing so—I am just so incredibly fortunate that I can ride. That I have the choice to ride.
Riding in the PMC is not about personal achievement and not about how well “I do.” It is not about comfort and ease. We ride to raise money and support those battling cancer. We ride to do our small part to help find a cure for this terrible disease.
I know so many of you already donate to other riders and certainly support the fight against cancer through other organizations. I am however hopeful that some of you will consider donating to my ride this year, and help me raise as much money as possible to help find a cure for this awful disease that has touched all of us.
For those who don’t know about the PMC visit here https://www.pmc.org/about
Thank you,
Ben Fischman
Dear Friends,
At the last minute I have decided to ride tomorrow in this year's Pan-Mass Challenge. I was not planning to ride this year because I haven't done much training and wasn't sure I would be up to it.
A very close, life long friend of Wendy and mine was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago. He is my age, never smoked, maintained overall good health - just incredibly unlucky. After the terrible news of the initial diagnosis, he got some good news. He was a match for some modern treatments that could likely fight the disease and prolong his life. These treatments would not cure the disease and would likely only be effective for a few years but hopefully, by the time they stopped working there would be new treatments. Thanks to the money raised for cancer research, he has been able to be treated by experimental drugs that have worked these past years.
He and his family have been fighting this disease with the constant specter of further bad news, living scan to scan. Well, now it appears that we have reached the time when the treatments are not as effective—and now they need to try new methods to attempt to keep the cancer at bay.
My friend did not have a choice to fight cancer. He did not train to fight cancer. He has faced an epic life and death challenge and has done so with incredible strength, courage and tenacity. And I decided not to ride this year because I had not trained enough? Because it might be a little uncomfortable? That is ridiculous. So I am riding. And I deserve no medal for doing so—I am just so incredibly fortunate that I can ride. That I have the choice to ride.
Riding in the PMC is not about personal achievement and not about how well “I do.” It is not about comfort and ease. We ride to raise money and support those battling cancer. We ride to do our small part to help find a cure for this terrible disease.
I know so many of you already donate to other riders and certainly support the fight against cancer through other organizations. I am however hopeful that some of you will consider donating to my ride this year, and help me raise as much money as possible to help find a cure for this awful disease that has touched all of us.
For those who don’t know about the PMC visit here https://www.pmc.org/about
Thank you,
Ben Fischman
