I got a chance to talk with my hero and my inspiration for those long, hot, cranky miles that I talked about a couple posts ago. On Sept. 11th, our team held an Honored Teammate picnic and Tyler Cordova and his mom Holly came. I got a chance to get a picture with Tyler, wearing a medal from the Disney marathon and holding an official race badge, given to him by one of our teammates.
Tyler is 8 years old. He was diagnosed in 2007 with non-hodkins Lymphoma. He is an honored teammate for our marathon training team. Jason & I have known Tyler since we joined the team in 2008 and have followed his story. He is pictured here a few years ago with another honored teammate and fellow marathoner, Virginia Garner.
He has had a lot of ups and downs even since we've known him with cancer hitting his central nervous system, then his bone marrow, a stem cell transplant last year, blood clots & infections, and even this last July, thought it might be the end.
But Tyler keeps fighting. His spirit stays high and his outlook stays positive and his dreams of the future are alive and vivid.
Both Tyler & Virginia are living examples of how what I do makes a difference. Their smiles are precious.
Tyler knows that our entire team is raising money to help him and others like him. When we were on the team in Winter 2008, he donated all of his piggy bank money to the team, because he knows that we have fundraising minimums. He encourages and inspires us in so many ways.
Running isn't always fun and training for marathons isn't easy. Thinking of Tyler makes it more fun and less difficult. I think that I need him just as much as he needs me.
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