48 Hours and Counting

If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell. - Lance Armstrong

They are my children.   

They are my hope.   

They are my inspiration.   

They are my heart.  

They are my purpose.   

They are the reason.

For five years I have watched my kids fight.  I have watched them as they have returned from the hospital with new battle wounds; railroad tracks of stitches across their heads, tummies, and chests.  I have watched them feed themselves, and then watched as they were fed through TPN, or IV nutrition.  I have watched as they made friends with the new faces arriving daily at the House, and then watched as they learned that life is not fair, and friends die.

And so, when you ask me why I run, this is my answer:  I run because my kids deserve a chance.  They deserve the chance to JUST BE KIDS.  They deserve the chance to grow up with their siblings, not apart from them.  They deserve the chance to rise through school with their classmates, not with tutors in the hospital.  They deserve the chance to visit Disney World without a mask, or an oxygen tank, or an IV nutrition backpack.  They deserve the chance to run around outside carefree, and not just observe it from a window  

They deserve CHILDHOOD.

In less than 48 hours I will begin a race that will cover 13.1 miles of New York City.  It makes me angry to know that I will cover more territory of this incredible city on foot, than many of my kids will ever see - be it in an ambulance, the Hope Mobile, a taxi cab, etc.; not because they don't want to, but because they can't be exposed to germs, or they are too weak to leave their beds.  

But this anger is not a bad thing.  This anger is really just another name for hope.  And it is hope that will propel me forward.  Hope that my kids will all one day be able to feel sunshine on their skin.  Hope that my kids will grow up to live EXTRAORDINARY lives.  Hope that my kids will know a world without pain.  Hope that my kids will live.

So it is because of this that I ask you to donate by clicking here.   
My KIDS deserve HOPE.