I guess I’ll have to take a medical redshirt this year.
For the past four years, I’ve gone to Austin, Texas, in October to ride my bicycle up to 100 miles in an event called the LiveSTRONG Challenge to raise funds in the fight against cancer.
I’ve gotten tremendous support in this from the Florida A&M community, especially the first year I participated, in 2006, when students, faculty colleagues and other staff accounted for about a quarter of the $8,000 plus I raised. (Some of this was probably out of pity after I was spotted holding a one-man bikeathon near the Set pedaling away on my bike, mounted on a stationary trainer, on the hottest day of the Fall 2006 semester.)
I can’t ride this year, which I’ll explain later, but first I want to let all of my FAMU family know they can still support the same cause by sending their support to my good friend and Division of Journalism faculty colleague, Prof. Kenneth Jones, who has been training hard to prepare for his second Challenge. And his wife will ride, too, though probably not the whole 100 miles!
I’m adding a link to Prof. Jones’ fundraising website and will make my own contribution to his site soon after finishing this column, and I hope you will too, and pass the link on to family, friends and the rest of Rattler Nation.
We rode together in 2008 – Prof. Jones’ first “century” ride – and we had plans to ride together this year and take a team of FAMUans with us before a temporary health setback derailed my own plans.
Last year a pair of FAMU law school professors, Lundy Langston and Omar Saleem, also participated. (Each of us surpassed the $1,000 fundraising mark, but with more preparation we felt we could have done more.)
I’ve heard from Professor Langston this week, and she expects to be in Austin, too. I’ll put something on her page, too.
Part of what we have been aiming to do is raise the visibility of African Americans at events like the LiveSTRONG Challenge. We’re always a little disappointed a how few black riders we see in Austin and at similar events elsewhere.
I plan to be back at this next year, and I’d like to briefly spell out the reason. This is because I strongly feel one of the reasons our community is disproportionately affected by some deadly maladies – let’s start with prostate and breast cancer – is that we don’t want to openly discuss some important health issues. We need to talk about these things, and we need to get screened!
My medical redshirt is not cancer-related; I recently had a deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot in my right leg, plus pulmonary embolism, and am on an anticoagulation regime that has kept me off my bike for now, on the advice of my doctors. But I am gradually adjusting and do plan to ride again soon.
But the fight against cancer is something I feel so strongly about that despite the fact that I am not riding the Challenge in 2010, I would like to rally the FAMU community around this special effort and make a few points while doing so.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 569,490 Americans will die of cancer this year – more than 1,500 a day. But an alarming proportion of those who die are black. The biggest disparities in mortality rates are for prostate, breast, colorectal and stomach cancers.
A lot of this is due to lack of awareness and a failure to get screened. A FAMU pharmacy professor who is a Moffitt postdoctoral fellow at the University of South Florida this year, Dr. Folakemi Odedina, has done ground-breaking research to call attention especially to the prostate cancer disparities, which has helped raise awareness.
But Professor Jones and I want to do our part to raise awareness, too. We have all been touched by cancer. I don’t know many families who haven’t lost a loved one or had someone in a battle with the disease.
We have also seen it affect our FAMU family. In the School of Journalism and Graphic Communication, we keep adding to the list of colleagues and students who we dedicate our rides to. Fortunately, some are in survival mode, and we celebrate their battles and want to support them.
In this space last week you read Tineisha Sulker’s inspiring story about facing her cancer. The year I started riding in Austin, I remember how one of my students, Lauren Morris, confided in me about her reason for missing an assignment: a new diagnosis and trip home for radiation treatments. Her health improved, thank goodness, as has that of one of my faculty colleagues who has just returned to the classroom after a semester off because of cancer treatments.
There’s a LiveSTRONG Challenge anthem that talks about “winning this fight,” and I’d like to close with a direct appeal to the FAMU family to check out Professor Ken Jones’ site, read his reasons to ride, and contribute.
And next year, when I’ve taken off this redshirt, let’s take a big team of riders to the LiveSTRONG Challenge.
Here’s the link to my colleague’s site:
http://austin2010.livestrong.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=330110&lis=1&kntae330110=0A83795E69CD47F0B3DD5F6D73060F43&supId=305746761
If you have trouble trying to cut-and-paste this lengthy link, just go to austin2010.livestrong.org and do a search for Kenneth Jones in Tallahassee or Lundy Langston in Orlando and you can help our intrepid Rattler faculty members raise funds for cancer research and survivorship support to one of the best cancer-fighting organizations in the nation.
has just returned to the classroom after a semester off because of cancer treatments.
There’s a LiveSTRONG Challenge anthem that talks about “winning this fight,” and I’d like to close with a direct appeal to the FAMU family to check out Professor Ken Jones’ site, read his reasons to ride, and contribute.
And next year, when I’ve taken off this redshirt, let’s take a big team of riders to the LiveSTRONG Challenge.
If you have trouble trying to cut-and-paste the lengthy link, just go to austin2010.livestrong.org and do a search for Kenneth Jones in Tallahassee or Lundy Langston in Orlando. You can help our intrepid Rattler faculty members raise funds for cancer research and survivorship support to one of the best cancer-fighting organizations in the nation.