Young Adult Cancer Canada > Community

Let’s Go Climbing

School is back, depending where you live the nights are getting a little chilly and we at RealTime Cancer are crazy busy preparing for our biggest and most significant community event, the RealTime Cancer Climb.

Would you believe this is the 6th Annual Climb? I have trouble sometimes but that is the case.

It all started with very modest beginnings. I had just started RealTime Cancer a few months earlier when I decided that I wanted to remember a milestone of my progress as I continued recovering from treatment and ICU after my first transplant. That milestone was #5 on the list below… my first unaided steps after ICU.

As a survivor of two cancer challenges I have buckets of dates that connect to something significant happening in my life. A small sample:

1. November 9, 1998, I was officially diagnosed with leukemia.
2. April 13, 1999, I had my first transplant from my Dad.
3. July 25, 1999, I entered hospital with an infection that tried really hard to kill me, but it didn’t succeed!
4. August 23, 1999, I woke from my coma after 3 Â½ weeks on life-support.
5. September 20, 1999, After merely three weeks of working out (i.e. doing pull-ups in my hospital bed at home and walking with my walker) I took my first unaided steps since leaving ICU.
6. April 13, 2000 & 2001, Anniversaries of my first transplant.
7. July 20, 2001, Relapse.
8. October 10, 2001, 2nd transplant.
9. October 10, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2nd transplant anniversaries.
10. December 31, 2004, “Hitched” how could I forget that one!!??

#5 has evolved into the most public of the short list as we’ve created a RealTime Cancer event around it. The thing about the Climb which makes it extra special for me is that it’s not about my anniversary anymore.

So what is the Climb about?

Well I can only answer that for me. First and foremost it is about miracles and the “never quit” spirit. As most of you know I am a living miracle, if you don’t believe in them then we must meet, because if there was no such thing I’d be moved on to the next phase. I also happen to have determination and a support network of family and friends that was all about “never quitting” when I was in ICU in 1999.

The Climb is also about young adults (those young at heart also welcome!). It is another way RealTime Cancer communicates our core message of “positive attitude” but in a more subliminal way. Each year you’ll find that the average age of Climbers is about 18, which suits us perfectly. The community is always welcome but our focus for the Climb is to get young adults (high school, post-secondary students and graduates) out.

Young adults are our people, they are the reason we’re here and we love having them involved in our organization.

RealTime Cancer is a registered charity, we raise money to deliver programs to help young adults deal with cancer and the Climb is a huge contributor to both community awareness of our organization and to our bottom line. In fact since 2000 we’ve had over 2400 Climbers participate and raised over $70,000 at just the St. John’s Climb alone!

Those are big numbers in the world of RealTime Cancer.

But even more significant is the void we are here to fill. The fact that there is no national cancer organization focused on young adults is inexcusable and intolerable for me. And when I find something so reprehensible I usually try to do something about it. That is why RealTime Cancer’s mission is not only important but it’s essential.

How do you get involved?

If you are interested to Climb there are two ways you can participate. Download a pledge page from our site or show up the day of the Climb and register. All this info plus registration and prize info is at www.youngadultcancer.ca.

If you aren’t able to be with us on Signal Hill but still want to help you can do that by sponsoring a Climber if you are approached or going on-line and sponsoring me on my ascent up Signal Hill!

Last year I raised over $1300 through my on-line pledge page, which was a solid contribution to the event so this year I figured I’d bump it up a little. My target is to raise $2,146, which works out to be a dollar for every day since I was diagnosed in 1998.

I’d love your help in reaching that goal just as many of you helped last year.

Count on hearing from me again soon with a Climb update.

Always…
Live life. Love life.

Geoff

Posted on 2005-09-16 by Geoff

Eliminating Isolation

I’m not sure where to start, this is another one of those rare times when I’m finding it tough to find words. Though admittedly this doesn’t happen often.

I think I can say with confidence this past weekend was the most significant time of RealTime Cancer’s 5 plus year existence. There may be a few other days that are as significant for me personally but as far as our initiatives are concerned, this weekend was definitely the pinnacle.

We started gathering on Wednesday last week, were all here by Friday night and the last left yesterday. We represented seven provinces, 28 of us, mostly survivors, some of us with our supporters. We were many years away from treatment and we were literally in the middle of it. We were and are young adult cancer survivors and supporters.

While we had different cancers we have walked such similar roads. Many of us, even those with great support, have traveled alone, missing the companionship of those who truly get it. We got together to talk about our sh*t, literally and figuratively.

A little over two years ago we started to get serious about creating an online community where young adults could connect and “share their sh*t” (yes there’s a great story behind that line that originated from the weekend, I’ll share another time). About 18 months ago that online community was launched and the building phase began. It has flowed very well and as amazing as that tool is to facilitate the connection of survivors and supporters the reality is that it can’t replace personal face to face contact. Nor was it meant to. It had always been our intention to bring the community together.

This past weekend we hosted Retreat Yourself, for the first time. The weekend was full of guts, honesty and in my humble opinion went a long way in eliminating the isolation that so many of us had been living in. There is something very powerful about throwing out your fears and greatest challenges to complete strangers and having them respond unconditionally and truly get what you’ve experienced.

Where we go from here, while I know it will be in roughly the same direction as we were previously headed the reality is I’m going to need a few days, or possibly even weeks to figure things out. This was an incredible experience for me and while I’m so overwhelmed right now I know intellectually that RealTime Cancer’s vision is closer to realization than ever before.

There is still massive amounts of work to do, so many opportunities to continue putting young adults in a place that is more free of isolation but as my friend Ferris told me “life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it” so I’m taking time to look around cause I couldn’t miss this!

You know in a strong powerful way, as we sat in our circle on Friday, at the official beginning of the retreat program, and we all realized the obstacles our new friends had faced and how many of them were still facing huge challenges, as we opened up the display of “guts” blew me away. And as I sat there it became more apparent than ever that RealTime Cancer’s work isn’t just important it is absolutely essential.

Through the course of promoting the retreat we reached out across the country to cancer centers and other community organizations. Their feedback was encouraging and as they learned about our operations they were often so impressed by our track record and list of accomplishments “by such a small organization”. I’m not sure how to take that, as it is a nice complement, but the reality I can’t imagine it being any other way.

So our budget continues to grow, though as you may expect, not nearly as quickly as I’d like, our operations continue to evolve and our programs are reaching new people. I have this day-dream often that I win the lottery, big win, and that RealTime Cancer no longer has to fund-raise. That will most likely never happen cause I don’t buy tickets.

This weekend was amazing in so many ways and it has given me another push to focus, significantly increase our revenue, so we can significantly increase our capacity to create and deliver these essential programs and continue to help young adult survivors and supporters “deal with their sh*t”.

Always…
Live life. Love life.

Geoff

Posted on 2005-09-07 by Geoff