Below is an email I got from my friend Glenn, who runs Racing to Register Canada (www.racingtoregister.ca)  Glenn is also fighting MDS.

From Glenn :

Check out link and my update I sent last night to friends and family;

http://www.mississauga.com/community/article/971769–streetsville-shows-will-of-iron

FLABERGASTED! 

I the only word I can describe what is going on the past couple of weeks.

I would rather have gotten this much publicity for scoring a hat trick in a playoff game.

In point form:

• The village of Streetsville is stepping up and hosting a “swab clinic” called “get swabbed for Glenn”  April 2^nd.
• We have more than enough volunteers but opportunities will still exist for Niagara (May)  and London (June)
• Tonight I spoke at the Kinsmen /Rotary / Lions club annual meeting
• Saturday morning I will be on Dutch Radio (AM1320 at 9am)
• The CNBPA (Canadian Netherlands Business Professional Association) has taken up My cause in the Dutch Canadian Community
• Next Tuesday I will be on Rogers TV  (I think at 9am)
• Web site www.racingtoregister.ca is taking off.  Thanks Deb and Nicole
• A friend of mine is hosting a swab clinic at her work.  Thanks Lisa
• Another friend of mine is hosting a swab clinic at her work. Thanks Sandra.  If you can help in Guelph on April 28, 29 please contact Deb Riedstra (deb.ri@hotmail.com)

Tonight at the Kinsmen meeting I talked about how God has a purpose for me,  I believe that HE is using my disease to pull community together,  I believe I am going to be an ambassador for the 900 Canadians who are also waiting for a Stem Cell Transplant.  I believe that HE is blessing me with good health now so that I can accomplish this calling.    I also believe that I need help in this calling,   please spread the word on facebook, by phone, email, word of mouth ect…  Please pray for me, that I don’t “overdoit”  That I stay healthy, that I continue to have an easy time with Chemo treatments, that funding continues for these treatments.  Continue to Pray for Michelle, Ryan, Collette and Sierra, who also live it every day.

If you want to hold a swab clinic at your work,  let me know,  if you have a corporate wellness person,  ask them if its possible.

OK, lets start with the part people seem to really love to hear about. No not Charlie Sheen (though man is that the greatest stuff to watch!?) I am referring to Brinkley mania: This weeks edition of How “My Dog Keeps Me Awake, But Only During the Work Week”, involves Brinkley going back to an oldy but a goody: the perpetual gagging. It seems that it’s a big circle with Brinkley, you see she will constantly lick her paws, because she is compulsive (that another 2-3 blogs), and then develops “hair balls”. I love her, but she still hasn’t figured out that constant licking makes her digest hair, which after about 2 months each time, makes her then gag as she is trying to get it up. But she can’t, so she walks around, all the time, coughing like someone who spent a summer in the Iraqi desert inhaling sand.  This goes on for about 5 days, all day and night, and then eventually she gets exhausted, throws it up (always on the white carpet) comes over and is very proud, and then its over….but I’m exhausted, making any good training for about a week virtually impossible unless I have a central line hooked into me flooded by Red Bull. Good thing I am not training due to the shoulder/neck.

Now that we got that underway, let me take a few lines to comment on something. I do appreciate when folks ask how Pam and I are, but there are some pretty funny answers Id love to give sometimes…

• Q: “Hey Tom why don’t you guys have kids?” : A: “Well we are in our late 40′s and since the cancer center doesn’t have a children’s playroom nearby we decided it would be too hard”.
• Q:”How Long can Pam live with this” ? A:” I will let you know when we find out….”
• Q:”Good to see Pam, she looks so good! “: A: “Well better to be seen then viewed I guess”

Dont get me wrong, we appreciate when people ask questions, it shows interest and allows us to educate, but some of the questions are pretty funny….

Hey, you need to always, always be able to somehow, laugh at the situation. When you can’t laugh anymore you can’t shake off the fear and you let the mind take over. Remember this, the “mind” is only a tiny little round thing in your head, the body and spirit are much much larger. Remember this, and you will be controlling the situation not letting the situation control you.

On Friday March 11 we interviewed Richard Adler, CEO of Philadelphia Triathlon, LLC. PT,LLC runs the She Rox tri series, Ironman Pocono 70.3, and a host of other races. Listen and learn the history of the race, preview on pros racing this year in Philadelphia Insurance Tri, and inside race tips. Also hear information on supported charities.

I was really happy to see the article linked here in the Science Daily…Shows that we continue to stay ahead of some of these curves in the big L disease. What great news, now we can work toward a cure, I hope, for at least this disease

Last weekend we had a great turnout at the Endurance Sports Expo in Oaks, PA for a registry drive where we registered almost 100 people. See this photo of our team. (Andy, me, Pam and Hannah…the girls are clearly the ones in the family who got the looks!)

On another front, My good friend and Ironman Athlete Glenn Van Zeumeren, who lives in Canada, is really in the fight for his life. Glenn has a rare Leukemia and needs to find a match for a BMT. Right now, Glenn has not matched with anyone, and docs have given him a 24 month time frame, but hey, we got news for the docs: Back off baby! Glenn is an Ironman, and you don’t know how tough we are!! So go back to your labs and let us fight the fight. That said, we need to find a match. Canada only has 300,000 people in their registry, but we can search the international base for Glenn.  Moreover, we are hoping to launch www.racingtoregister.ca in the next weeks or so to spread the word more. Please help Glenn and get swabbed! Go to www.getswabbed.org and or contact me through this site or www.facebook.com/racingtoregister . If you are in Canada, then go to One Match and get signed up-stop skiing or playing hockey or whatever and go join! No we in Philly actually love Canada. Except for in 1993 and Joe Carter with that home run off Mitch Williams. But lets get back to the post.

Ok so now for the what I call the second C : Commitment. From my last post I mentioned having courage. We all have it somewhere inside. Going to work, school or trying a new sport takes courage. Even trying an Ironman takes courage…when I went to Kona and stared out at the swim turnaround I thought Id need an overnight bag is was so freakin’ far out there! Sometimes we think that it simply doesn’t matter if we try something new and have courage, we wonder who cares, why do it etc…but it is very important indeed, because without any courage we can never make a commitment. That’s the second C. Courage allows us to make a commitment to finish what we have the courage to take on.  We need to know we can finish anything we start. No one believes in you or your dreams more than you do. Remember that. If you believe in your dreams and yourself, fully, then the commitment is already there.  As athletes, we have commitment. Training for an Ironman will involve swimming more than the length of 2000 football fields, bike across the country, run 39 marathons or so, all in one year alone. That is commitment. Or pure stupidity. Or boredom. Or all of the above.

And there are plenty of doctors, scientists, current and past patients, volunteers and many others that are commitment to finding a cure for  blood cancers. UPENN, Mayo Clinic and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center all have clinical studies going on. In the coming months we will publish new findings as they come out.

In the interim, build on the courage you have within you and stay committed to the task at hand, and happiness and great satisfaction will indeed come: And, you will be “dah, winning!”…get it ?