Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro will be a challenge for me, but more importantly, is a tribute to the many hundreds of patients with cancer I have treated over the past 35 years. They and their families have shown me the meaning of true courage.

If you asked me who my hero is I would have to say my Dad.

My Dad has faced many challenges throughout his lifetime, each making him stronger and yet more vulnerable. When Dad was 5 years old he came down with rheumatic fever. From the age of 5 until the age of 8, a teacher from the Father Baker’s School for Boys home schooled Dad. When my father was finally well enough to attend school he was behind in the grades and attended the same grade as his younger brother. Rheumatic fever damaged Dad’s joints and heart.

At the age of 17 my Dad tried to join the Marines, but due to his medical background they declined his application. At 19, my Dad was drafted in to the Navy and became a Merchant Marine. On March 4th 1944 at 2:30 in the morning my Dad’s ship the Joel R Poinsett (A liberty ship) was torpedoed on the return trip from Liverpool England. The Ship snapped in half, the front of the ship sank but the rear stayed a float. The crew sat on half a ship for 32 hours waiting for help to arrive.

In August of 1945 Dad suffered a relapse of rheumatic fever and ended up in the Jacksonville Navel Hospital. He stayed in Jacksonville until February of 1946, when he was transported to the Batavia Veterans Hospital.  There on February 16th, 1946 my Dad was discharged.

My Father never graduated from high school, but yet earned his GED and went on in life to own two businesses. Plus he worked a full time job, to support a wife, seven children, and a whole bunch of animals.

During Dad’s life he had been diagnosed with diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, skin cancer, multiple joint replacements and numerous ailments. But all of these medical conditions were small in comparison for what was yet to come.

On November 21, 2004 my dad had a heart attack. He had wonderful Doctor’s who really took great care of him. You see, my father had a horrible hacking cough for quite some time prior to his heart attack.  The Doctor that preformed his by-pass surgery scoped his lungs during the by-pass procedure. The scope found some unusually spots, that they sent for biopsies.  Dad’s cough prohibited his recovery and caused so many complications that he had to under go three more major surgeries. Twice the doctors when in to repair the sternum. Then third and final surgery to remove the sternum completely. For the final surgery Dad laid in an induced coma for three days over the Christmas Holiday, until a specialist could be brought in to make him a protective cover for the heart. Somewhere between the first surgery and the last, Dad contracted a deep tissue infection in the chest cavity.

On January 13, 2005, Dad finally came home. He was still on IV antibiotic, which had to be changed every six hours. His chest cavity was open and needed to be repacked twice a day. But yet recovering from this was still not his greatest challenge.

In late January, we received bad news, Dad had lung cancer, we were stunned. This was yet to be his greatest challenge.

In February of 2005, as we wheeled my Dad into Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Dad reached up and said, “I don’t think I can survive another surgery, I don’t think I will live though this” and as my sister and I fought back the tears, we assured him that every thing would be ok.

The family met with a Doctor at Roswell Park who explained the type of treatment that would be best for Dad. PDT.  Photo Dynamic Therapy.

The American Cancer Society funded for the research of this particular type of treatment.

No surgery. Only non-invasive treatments. By the fall of 2005 Dad was cleared and now returns for yearly checkups.  Lung cancer was by far the most challenging disease my father has ever faced.

It is only through the continuous funding of cancer research that we will ever find the answers to this truly hideous disease. My father is alive today because of the type of treatment he received.  If he had to go through another surgery he might not have been here to enjoy my over cooked Easter ham!

My personal touch with cancer gives me more passion for my work. You see, I am reminded every day by the many cancer survivors I meet, why I do what I do. Although Dad’s cancer was found at an early stage, my family still worries all the same. I am thankful for the researchers, doctors and the American Cancer Society for making huge strides in helping find a cure.

In February of 2009 I will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in honor of my Dad. I am happy to face this challenge knowing that the funds I am raising for cancer research might help someone else’s Dad.  I am asking you today to please support my efforts by making a donation in my Dad’s honor to my Mount Kilimanjaro climb care of the American Cancer Society. You may send you donation to: Jo’s Kili Climb, American Cancer Society, 101 John James Audubon Parkway, Amherst, NY 14228

Your donation can help fund a cure! With hope, jo

"Alex and Desi are climbing in memory of our family members that we have lost to cancer. We are also climbing in honor of those family members who have survived cancer and in honor of those who are still struggling."

I don’t know why I want to climb Kili.  I just know that when I heard my friend Diane King speak about her 08 climb, my whole being said, “Why didn’t I do that?”  Then, when she said there would be another climb in 09, I was so thrilled I could hardly contain myself!

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is a metaphor for so many things on so many levels.  Terry Cullinan (09) tells me that apparently the name came from early German settlers’ attempts to pronounce the local name for the mountain, a word which meant “impossible.”  Other origins have been suggested, but this one rings the truest.  “Impossible!”  Climbing almost 20,000 feet at sixty-five (which I’ll turn three months before) with two post-surgery knees is impossible.  Getting my neglected self in shape by February is impossible.  And raising all that money….

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do,” said Eleanor Roosevelt.  Cancer is one of the things we instinctively feel we cannot do.  It is, in a word, impossible.  But when cancer enters your life, as it did mine nine years ago when my husband Gareth was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, you definitely must do the thing you think you cannot do.  Cancer, whatever the outcome, is one of those things that makes us bigger than we are.  It is one of the ways that God stretches us.  

Gareth did not survive multiple myeloma.  But we journeyed together on a path of impossible challenges, and we did them together.  Our blinders ripped off, we lived without regard for the things that seemed so important the day before.  We grew closer.  We did new things and we learned new things – about life, about love, about each other.  We watched the Yankees together.  We went out for coffee a million times.  We planned a trip to New Zealand.  We didn’t make it there, so Gareth mapped out a trip closer to home.  We went to Acadia National Park, Grand Manan Island, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince William Island, the Gaspe Peninsula, Montreal, the Thousand Islands and home to Rochester – between chemo.  What a trip!  And now we’re gong to climb a mountain.  Kilimanjaro, here we come!  I’ll be climbing.  He’ll be cheering – I know.

Bonnie Lloyd