I am riding the PMC for the 3^rd time this year, and I am looking for your support.

When I started riding the PMC I had spent little time thinking about cancer; it really hadn’t made an impact on my life.  Sure, I had a small lump removed from my tongue when I was in my 20’s and had a brief scare.  I had a couple of friends of friends who had some form of cancer, but I was so far removed from it, the treatment had been successful, or the worst of it had only happened to “old people”.  And, embarrassing to admit, where it had struck closer to home, I really had not paid that much attention to it.

During the last two years, my awareness of cancer has been raised. In part it has been because, through doing the PMC, I have become more aware, and have focused more on stories from friends and family about their cancer trials.  In part, unfortunately, it has been because it has struck closer to home.  I have a friend in chemo right now with an aggressive cancer; I have some family members who have discovered a genetic predisposition to a given terminal cancer.  I have come to realize that this story is very much ongoing, very personal, that it can happen to anyone, and when it happens it can be truly sudden and destructive.