The half-way mark is here! WOW! I can’t believe that the 29 Days Until 29 journey has come this far! 2 weeks ago a month long journey seemed like forever, now it seems like it’s going to end too soon! My body finally caught up with me yesterday morning and demanded some sleep. My buddy Tim from Charlottesville had reached out to his friend Ted who he went to school with and currently lives in San Francisco. Tim and Ted both went to Virginia Tech. It was an exercise in personal growth to agree to meet Ted. I kid, I kid – between Greg Slater, Tim, & Ted, I’m starting to like some Hokies!
Ted was kind enough to house a Wahoo for the night and he and his girlfriend Kyra took me out to eat at an amazing restaurant called Zero-Zero. My drink had egg whites in it and dessert was a ‘create your own’ ice cream sundae, not to mention the awesome pizzas and appetizers that we had! Once we got home I crashed hard and woke up just in time to shower, do the CBS 19 News at 5 segment, and hop onto the bus to the Ferry Building, where I met Traci.
Traci has a great story, once that exemplifies what the 29 Days Until 29 journey is all about; taking a negative created by cancer and turning it into a positive. In January of 2006 Traci lost her mom to lung cancer (which only has a 16.2% survival rate). Anytime one loses a parent it stinks, but Traci wasn’t content with standing idly by. While her mom was sick it really bothered Traci that she couldn’t find information about her mom’s sickness in a language that was easy to understand for someone who wasn’t a MD. She decided that she needed to take action to help others not go thru the same process.
Traci founded The Beverly Fund Lung Cancer Foundation. Not only does it help get the needed information to family members in an easier way that previously existed but it also helps on getting funding directly to researchers, specifically in the field of early detection.
Once of the things that Traci and I discussed was how frustrating it is to cut thru the red tape of non-profits and foundations and everything that you have to do to get them off of the ground and up to speed. There are all of these people that want to help, that want to do good things, but find that it’s harder to do so then it should be. I can attest to this 1st hand thru my interaction with the American Cancer Society and it’s very frustrating! Traci has shouldered that burden and works to ensure that the dollars raised go towards the mission, not towards overhead.
It was great to meet her, hear her story, and learn from her experiences. She is yet another person on this trip who I hope to stay in touch with long into the future and is turning the universal negative connection that we all share because of cancer into something positive. Thank you Traci!!