Pedal Forward!

Описание: Support Cycle Route 66 – http://www.gofundme.com/cycleroute66
Cycle Route 66 Website – http://cycleroute66.us
Preparation for & Trip Blog – http://blog66.cycleroute66.us/
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On Instagram –   / cycleroute66  
Cycle Route 66 YouTube Channel –    / @cycleroute6684  

After 40 years as a diabetic, 3 organ transplants, and surviving significant vision loss, heart surgery, bowel surgery, and colon cancer, I’m ready for my next challenge: Riding Route 66, from LA to Chicago. On a bicycle. To raise awareness about the organ transplantation that saved my life, and the diabetes that tried to take it.

And to do it, I need your help.

I’m doing this to show three things:

· Organ transplantation works. Without the generosity of 3 separate organ donors I wouldn’t be here to do any of it

· diabetes doesn’t have to slow you down – or keep you from doing what you love

· a positive attitude, along with current medical technology, can accomplish seemingly impossible things.

Your donation will go far to prove that many seemingly hopeless medical situations can be treated, made less dangerous, or even cured. It will show that positive attitude has a significant role, and that many seemingly insurmountable problems can be solved.

A little more about me …

I was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic in 1957, when I was 1½ years old. At the time, the doctors told my parents to expect me to be blind by the time I was 20, develop kidney failure soon after, and die by the age of 30.

In October of 2015, I will turn 60.

Over the past 60 years, I have overcome a lifetime of medical challenges:

· Diabetic retinopathy, leading to blindness in one eye, and significant vision loss in the other;

· Diabetic kidney disease (discovered when my wife and I went to have blood tests for our marriage license);

· 2 living donor kidney transplants;

· Pancreas transplant;

· 2½ years on dialysis waiting for a second kidney transplant;

· Surgeries to repair a bowel obstruction and to perform a pericardial window – within 2½ months of my second transplant surgery;

· Stage 3 colon cancer; chemotherapy, and an acute rejection of my transplanted pancreas while on chemotherapy. Fortunately, the doctors were able to save the pancreas

Before my pancreas transplant in 1997, I had been an avid cyclist. But after the transplant, it had become next to impossible to continue. Sixteen years later, before my heart surgery, I decided I wanted and needed to start cycling again. I knew I wanted a more comfortable ride, and set my sights on a recumbent trike (a bicycle with three wheels instead of two). In an extremely generous gesture, a close friend surprised me with a gift of just that.

I started riding as soon as the doctor said I could, slowly at first, and building up to longer distances. In the first year of owning it. I put nearly 2,000 miles on the bike, and felt better than I had in many, many years. And since 2013, I’ve pedaled more than 4,000 miles – including while on chemotherapy.

I have fought and lived my life without complaining about any of the medical roadblocks that have appeared in front of me. I have always worked, been happily married for more than 30 years, and raised a son I couldn’t be more proud of.

When I read that the original Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles was now a certified bike route, I knew immediately I wanted to travel those 2,500 historic miles. I had done a couple of bike tours in the past, and I know the challenges a rider confronts on such a journey.

This ride – which will present almost constant unknown, and difficult challenges, both physical and psychological – is a perfect analogy of my life, and parallels the medical challenges I have faced.

My GoFundMe campaign – http://www.gofundme.com/cycleroute66