Almost ten years ago, my mother lost her fight with lung cancer. At the same time, my wife Susan’s mother lost her battle with breast cancer. For the last five years, Susan’s father has been battling leukemia…undergoing a variety of experimental treatments at John’s Hopkins and the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center. So far, he keeps winning. But he’s got a disease that can’t be cured, so he will spend the rest of his life just trying to get a decent remission period.

We know the impact of cancer. We’ve watched friends and family go through the rollercoaster ride that happens when cancer enters your life. We’ve experienced the pain of loss, but we’ve also seen the joy of victory.

Cancer research is critical to help people like my father-in-law fight this disease. I’ve always believed in the importance of research, but having watched him go through the experimental treatments, I’m more convinced of its importance that ever. It is amazing to see the advances that have happened in the last ten years.

In my massage practice, we treat cancer patients…helping them through this incredibly difficult time in our own small way. We can’t cure cancer with massage, but we can ease the pain and—we believe—help facilitate the treatment.

That’s why we’ll be donating massage services at the Reston Relay for Life on May 31. We admire the people who raise money and give their time to this event. Anyone who is participating in the relay can get a free massage on Saturday. We’ll also be collecting donations, all of which will go to the Relay for Life.

It will be an inspiring event! We hope to see you there. Come say hi.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 3:26 pm and is filed under News, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.