Day 249 - LIVESTRONG

I had lunch with Lance Armstrong today.

Like I have been telling the people around me, membership has its privileges.

Today is the 15 year anniversary of LIVESTRONG, and as part of the festivities all the Nike cancer kids were invited to have lunch with Lance, the Dr. who saved his life, and the foundation president.

As impressive as they all were, I was also glad to learn about the 30 people in the room with me, several with my same haircut.

2/3 of my lunch mates were women, and I would say 2/3 of the women were breast cancer survivors.

There were 3 redheads - all 3 had melanoma.

The men had a range of cancers- from testicular, to lymphoma.

My favorite discussion of the day was when we spoke about "The Obligation of the Cure".

When Lance was undergoing treatment, and it got to the point when his Dr. realized that he was going to survive, he began discussing with Lance his obligation to all the people who came before him.  People who had gone through the clinical trials that lead to his cure, people who maybe didn't make it, people who would come next.

I often think of all the women who came before me.  The ones who tried new therapies that are now standard, the ones who didn't have good nausea meds, the ones who received full body radiation.

They got me to today.  They got me to survival.

Now my obligation is to help who ever comes next, in any way I can.