what i'm doing on june 10

This summer, I will be competing... No, no that's not the right word. Racing? Definitely not. Participating? Yes, but not descriptive enough. Ah, I've got it...


This summer, I will be dragging my sorry self up and down some hills and trying not to expire in the process in the annual MMRF RACE for RESEARCH in New Canaan, CT along with the rest of the Pop's Posse team. You of vivid imagination can picture me, there at the back of the pack, panting, cramping, compaining, whining, hurting, crying, begging to be carried. That was me last year. And last year, I had been "training" for a few months prior by walking 2-3 miles a day. This year, I haven't had any training, unless you count the 20 foot walk from my couch to my kitchen. And with the RACE less than a month away, I don't foresee any great miracle of fitness happening for me. Let me put it to you this way: my 80-something year old uncle could do the 5K circuit twice before I'll cross that finish line.

But the point isn't how long it will take me to cross the finish line. The point is that I will cross it. And why will I do this? I will do this because the MMRF RACE for RESEARCH is a cause that I believe in. MMRF is the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, an organization that raises awareness and funds research to fight and one day cure multiple myeloma. Ten years ago, I had never heard of this disease. When my best friend Kim's mother was diagnosed with it, I looked it up on the internet. At that time, there was a bleak outlook for those with this cancer; difficult to diagnose, there was no cure, no remission, few treatments, and a life expectency averaging 6 months to 1 year after diagnosis. A few years later, my uncle Paul (a.k.a. Pop) was diagnosed. By then, the number of treatments had increased and diagnoses were coming in earlier stages of the disease, which led to exponentially longer life expectencies. Both Kim's mom and my uncle Paul underwent intense (although very different) treatments, and are now both in remission.

This would not be possible without the MMRF. Although the American Cancer Society funds a diverse array of cancer research, less than 1% has gone toward myeloma. In contrast, the MMRF has channeled 92% of every dollar raised toward the most cutting-edge myeloma research worldwide. So far, that has totalled over $60 million funding 51 laboratories. But there is so much more they can do. The treatments available today are not cures, and they all have drastic side-effects including neuropathy and diabetes that do not go away when the treatment stops.



So I'm asking - please click this link to Pop's Posse Fundraising Central and donate a buck or two or twenty or however much you can to this worthwhile cause. It'll make a difference. And it'll make you feel good! And it will make me work that much harder to get myself up and down those blasted hills and across that finish line!

Danke schön!