The Peak

Support Relay For Life

By Kory Black

As a cancer patient in the last leg of treatment, I was asked to write this article to raise awareness for the SFU Relay For Life coming up on March 19, 2010. I was asked to just write about myself and my story but I have decided not to.

I wanted to tell you about how awesome Relay For Life is, and how I never really thought much about supporting it until I got diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I also debated discussing how we all know someone who has cancer and that I know how hard it is to live with cancer. But I decided not to talk about any of that either. Instead I think you should read about this.

The Relay For Life is a 12-hour event where you form a team and someone from that team is always running or walking on the track. Thus, it won’t be the same person on the track for the whole time. So, how does this relate to having cancer?

Like I said before, I am finishing up my treatments and by the time you read this I should have either beaten the cancer that was found in my chest and neck or going through small amounts of radiation to finish the job. I began thinking about how having cancer is like running a marathon and how Terry Fox ran his marathon, but I just could not relate running and physical activity to going through a serious disease like cancer.

I have barely been able to climb the stairs to reach my tutorials on the fifth floor of the AQ let alone run for 12 hours; relating running and cancer just seemed silly to me. I understand that both running a marathon and surviving cancer are very hard work and there is a lot of endurance involved. But with the Relay For Life, you can walk, talk with people while you walk, and goof around while you’re walking, if you so please. Writing this article just kept bringing me around a circle of frustration until I couldn’t take it any longer.

It wasn’t until I was sitting in my chemotherapy chair one session when the pieces of my puzzle finally fell into place. I was running this relay for my life.

From the moment the doctor sat me down and told me about the mass of lymphatic tissue in my chest until that sweet victorious moment when I get to tell my friends and family that I am free of the evil lump, I am running my own marathon. I am alone, competing with something so much smaller than I am, but so much more deadly.

There is no time frame or set distance that I must run. No, instead I am just told to start running and that I can only stop when one of us is dead. I can run if I want, or jog; hell, I can walk if I so desire because I am one of the lucky ones. I know that I will out-run this son-of-a-bitch and get to do my victory lap. But I have met some people who are not that lucky. I have a friend who will never stop running and the cancer will beat him down until he can barely crawl. It is here where I truly see the beauty of Relay For Life.

It is in this 12-hour relay where we can actually run with our loved ones who are living with (or have survived) cancer, because at other times all we can do for them is cheer them on, similar to the way we support our Olympic athletes. It is in this small window every year that we get to physically take this burden of running a never-ending marathon off the shoulders of our loved ones and say, “You sit for a while; I will run in your place.”

It is a time where we get to take a depressing situation and turn it into a fiesta for all to enjoy. Furthermore, not only does the money raised go straight to cancer research, but also to helping make the chemotherapy sessions more comfortable for patients and provide technology that will help us find, evaluate, and destroy the cancer. When you’re beaten and broken, knowing this is a feeling you just can’t imagine. All of this may be such a small gesture, but the impact is inconceivable.

You will find me at the SFU Relay For Life in the West Gym on March 19, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. If you want to participate, you still have time! Just go to http://www.cancer.ca/relay and sign up! You can sign up as an individual or register a team. If you want to volunteer, you can email SFURelay@bc.cancer.ca. Quoting J.R.R. Tolkien, Samwise Gamgee exclaimed, “Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. I can’t carry the ring for you, but I can carry you! Come on!”

I hope that you will help me carry those who need a day off from their relay for life; I look forward to seeing you all there!