LIVESTRONG at the Olympics
Today begins the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympicsm
Tonight, Lopez Lomong will have the honor of carrying the American flag.
Lopez has a very unique story. At age 6, he was abducted from a Sudanese church by a militia faction that wanted to turn young boys into child soldiers. He eventually escaped the militia camp through a hole in a fence with three older boys who carried them on their backs as they walked for three days until they reached Kenya, where police arrested them and sent them to a refugee camp. He spent 10 years in the camp, living on one meal a day. Lopez learned of a program that sought to relocate 3,500 refugees to the U.S. After an interview with a U.S. embassy official, Lopez resettled with a family in New York and attended Northern Arizona University where he began to pursue his Olympic dreams. Lopez Lomong embodies what it means to LIVESTRONG.
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August 19th, 2008 at 11:53 am
this was so cool to see. we are making strides. i’m not sure if anyone watches but on big brother 10 a guy name Ollie also sports his livestrong armband one person at a time…
August 20th, 2008 at 10:51 am
This photo brought tears to my eyes as I have long followed the (horrendous) story/ies of the Lost Boys and their families. Their story in mass and individually makes one wonder “why” the world is so cruel to so many and if the US and free world can open our doors and take in more of the worlds persecuted and reviled.
To have this individual here, alive, and well and competing and yes, wearing a Livestrong braclet is very moving. Boit having at this Olympics won the coveted double in the 100 and 200, and also worn our primier symbol on his wrist is a wonderful sign of our (cancer survivors and LAF) own future in seeking to make cancer a national priority.
Lance at the Summit in Columbus told us how he hates to lose and how that spurred him to race and win with his bike and team also told us how he sure didn’t want “to lose” to cancer. We have so many every day fighting this dread foe, and so many who did live strong and fight but whom I personally have known to subcumb having stayed twice in Caring Houses (one at Palmetto Richland Hospital in Columbia, S.C. and one at DUKE University Med Center in Durham, N.C.). Like Lance I have hated those lost…they were wonderful people and I think the world needs wonderful people.
Those of us who chose to support this effort can I feel think of ourselves as Lances’ Yellow Train. When Lance won those Tours with his US Postal Team as they competed one days press herelded “Lance Takes the Blue Train”…basically to Paris and victory. What we need to do is make sure this guy wins (and all of us who have been and will be stricken by cancer) again as he wants a cure. While cancer can’t in most likelihood be cured with one “discovery”…we can continue to raise funds for cancer research and trials which lead to better survival rates and hence, more individual cures. Those individual cures are “everything” in that it’s a life that is taken back from our foe…from cancer.
I want to continue to try to support LAF and Lance to fund cancer trials and to save more lives through research that gives our physcians more silver bullets to use to kill the cancer that ails the individual.
We know that survival rates for women with locally advanced breast cancer/inflammatory breast cancer, for one example do vary by race. The survival of black women has lagged that of white women and at this moment we do not know “why”. I have blond hair and blue eyes, I’m very fair…but I’ve survived inflammatory breast cancer (since I made it 40 months without recurrance or dying we know I’ve beat this one..this time). If and when I have a 2nd fight with breast cancer I will be staged from that point as having a new and unrelated breast cancer. So if I’m a stage one or two I’d be in the fight of women who are today staged as one or two. I frequently tell Black women I meet “I’m a sister!” My cancer is more common among Black women than white women, but is increasing in both populations. The outcome, however, is much worse for Black women. This tells me we continue to need to attack with all that we can muster the health care disparities of the sort displayed with inflammatory and white and black women.
In SC the SC Cancer Alliance Survivorship Task Force and the Research Task Force will both get a message from me regarding this recent revealing article.
We survivors are tasked with being a voice for the underserved and those who didn’t make it, or those who are fighting today and can’t muster the strenght today to join us. I feel I have a moral duty to do “all that I can”. Lance inspired, and with partners like Nike we now we must continue to work to defeat this dread disease in all it’s many horrible guises.
I close with a big LIVE! I know you have let out our hearty response…STRONG!
Thanks to Lance and LAF for the SUMMIT and to Nike for helping us become what we are!
August 20th, 2008 at 11:22 am
This photo brought tears to my eyes as I have long followed the (horrendous) story/ies of the Lost Boys and their families. Their story in mass and individually makes one wonder “why” the world is so cruel to so many, and if the US and free world can open our doors and take in more of the worlds persecuted and reviled.
To have this individual here, alive and well, and now competing in an Olympics and yes, wearing a Livestrong braclet is very moving. Boit, also, just having at this Olympics won the coveted double in the 100 and 200, and also worn our primier symbol on his wrist is a wonderful sign of our (cancer survivors and LAF) own positive future in seeking to make cancer a national priority.
Lance at the Summit in Columbus told us how he hates to lose, and how that spurred him to race and win with his bike and team. He also told us how he sure didn’t want “to lose” to cancer. None of us sticken want to lose to this foe, but to many of us currently do. To me (and I’m sure like Lance and LAF) to lose one is “to many”, yet we’ve far to go to save all “but one” of every type of cancer.
We have so many every day fighting this dread foe, and so many who did LiveSTRONG and fight, but whom I personally have known to subcumb having stayed twice in Caring Houses (one stay at Palmetto Richland Hospital in Columbia, S.C. and one stay at DUKE University Med Center in Durham, N.C.). Like Lance I have hated those losses…I would tell you they were wonderful people. I believe the world needs wonderful people here…they left husbands, wives, children, sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers and friends behind. We can learn from our losses however, and resolve to cut our losses to cancer. The plan to do this is to make cancer the National priority Lance spoke and speaks about. We can also continue to raise money to fund more cancer trials.
Those of us who chose to support this effort can I feel think of ourselves as Lances’ Yellow Train. When Lance won those Tours with his US Postal Team as they competed one days press herelded “Lance Takes the Blue Train”…basically, Lance took his Blue (Postal team) Train to Paris and victory. What we now need to do is make sure this guy wins again! If he wins we all collectively win–all of us who have been and will be stricken by cancer win as he wants a cure! While cancer can’t in most likelihood be cured with one “discovery”…we can continue to raise funds for cancer research and cancer trials which lead to better survival rates and hence, more individual cures. Those individual cures are “everything” in that it’s a life that is taken back from our deadly foe…from cancer.
I want to continue to try to support LAF and Lance as they, and now we, work to fund cancer trials and to save more lives through research. It takes research to find cures and yes, it takes money to fund the trials and that research. Research can and does give our physcians more silver bullets to use to kill the cancer that ails the individual. One life at a time we can take back lives that would otherwise be lost from cancer. What we are doing does matter.
We know survival rates for women with locally advanced breast cancer/inflammatory breast cancer, for one example do vary by race. The survival of black women has lagged that of white women and at this moment we do not know “why”. Like Lance I hate to lose, and I hate to lose even one life to this horrendous and brutal disease. I was told at one point in my treatment…this one likes to take you fast. This remains true today…so whatever we can do to put a rush on I’d vote for doing.
I have blond hair and blue eyes, I’m very fair…but I’ve survived inflammatory breast cancer (since I made it 40 months without recurrance or dying we know I’ve beat this one..this time). If and when I have a 2nd fight with breast cancer I will be staged from that point as having a new and unrelated breast cancer.
I frequently tell Black women I meet “I’m a sister!” My cancer is more common among Black women than white women, but is increasing in both populations. The outcome, however, is much worse for Black women. This tells me we continue to need to attack with all that we can muster the health care disparities of the sort displayed with inflammatory and white and black women.
In SC the SC Cancer Alliance Survivorship Task Force and the Research Task Force will both get a message from me regarding this recent and revealing article.
As a survivor I consider myself tasked with being a voice for the underserved and those who didn’t make it, or those who are fighting today and can’t muster the strenght today to join us due to being in treatment. I feel I have a moral duty to do what I can to help others fight this one and beat it.
Lance inspired, and with partners like Nike we now we must continue to work to defeat this dread disease in all it’s many horrible guises.
I close with a big LIVE! I know you have let out our hearty response…STRONG!
Thanks to Lance and LAF for the SUMMIT and to Nike for helping us become what we are in fighting cancer!