“The Team Sarcoma 2007 Initiative is an internationally coordinated set of events to raise awareness of sarcoma and raise funds to support sarcoma research, clinical trials, and patient and family services. The 2007 Initiative will include “Sarcoma Update” lectures that will be given in various cities around the world in June 2007 and the Team Sarcoma 2007 Bike Tour which will be held in the Lake Champlain area in Vermont and New York during July 14-21, 2007. Think of the Team Sarcoma 2007 Bike Tour as an “International Sarcoma Awareness Week”. The 50 members of the “core” Team Sarcoma 2007 in Vermont will be joined by people who will walk, run, bike, hike, spin or swim in the cities and countries where they live on one or more of the days that the members of Team Sarcoma 2007 are cycling in Vermont. These people form local “Team Sarcomas” in their home countries around the globe. “

A dear friend of mine has been training for Team Sarcoma – see above. I  have been reading her blog about her daily struggle with health and her endeavours to walk and train have been quite an eye opener for me. I’ve known her for some while now – although we’ve never met – since she owns and runs the chondrosarcoma Support group, that I am a co-moderator of. The fact that she is training is an unbeleivable feat of determination since she has had an internal helmpelvectomy (with no prosthesis) as a result of Chondrosarcoma. I don’t think I really understood the impact that such surgery can have on a person,  just walking about, and  life in general becomes much more of a challenge. Yet, Elizabeth is one of the brightest sparks I know  and has a determination and motivation that would leave most standing while she metaphorically sprinted to the finishing line. So to read about her daily stuggle is humbling and will perhaps enable others  to realize the impact that Chondrosarcoma can have. I thank her for that.
Her supreme efforts also got me wondering how many steps I take in the average day without even thinking about it; steps which I and other people take for granted – so I too strapped on a pedometer and was amazed to find out that it was over 10,000! So many of us just roll out of bed and after breakfast drive to work, then sit at a desk or a computer all day before driving home, then vegetate in front of the television all evening. We can walk with ease and yet don’t! Yet we are all aware that we are becoming a nation of overweight people and will eventually reap the potential health problems that come with being inactive. I hope each and every one of us that does not exercise will be inspired by Elizabeth to do more. My 10,000 a day is deliberate by the way – I spend my lunch hour power walking since I sit at a computer most of each day. For those of us that can walk without thinking – without effort – it is just a matter of fitting it into your life. If you’re reading this and don’t walk and are a self confessed couch potatoe – then let Elizabeth be your inspiration to get fit!
Also, having had Chondrosarcoma of the tibia and survived – and knowing that many are not as lucky as me – I think Team Sarcoma, raising money to find a cure for this awful disease is a wonderful. I will be sponsoring Elizabeth and hope everyone that reads this will do the same – because they can walk if they want to – without thinking about it – even if they choose not to!!

If you’d like to sponsor Elizabeth, follow the link to her site and press the “sponsor me” button! go on, make a difference, do it because you can!