There's something extraordinary about the number 25: Lelia and Team In Training



Bob and Lelia with fellow TNT'ers at
the Rock 'n' Roll Virginia Half Marathon in 2003.

 This year, there's something quite extraordinary about the number twenty-five. Team In Training will commemorate it's 25th anniversary. Lelia Emery (Huber), one of the Georgia Chapter's first Honored Heroes, will celebrate her 25th birthday. And to perfectly complete this trio of events, Bob Huber, father of Lelia and avid LLS volunteer will complete his 25th Team In Training event. Just a coincidence? We think not.

In 1988, Bruce Cleland started a movement when he got a team together to train for the New York City Marathon and raise funds to support leukemia research. To honor his baby daughter Georgia's battle with leukemia, Bruce and his team of 38 runners raised $322,000 for LLS's Westchester/Hudson Valley Chapter. From this effort, Team In Training was born; now 25 years later, the program has prepared more than 570,000 athletes who have raised more than $1.32 billion to support blood cancer research and patient services.

Little Lelia during treatment.

One of the first Honored Heroes from the Georgia Chapter of TNT was Lelia Emery (Huber). Lelia was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia in 1991, when she was just 2 ½ years old. She was hospitalized and immediately began receiving aggressive chemotherapy. Lelia's medication was called Methotrexate, which her family renamed "Pickle Juice" due to its green color. Finding ways to make treatment fun, Lelia also decided to name her chemo pump Seymour. Seven and a half years after being diagnosed, Lelia, ten years of age, was considered cancer free. Today, Lelia is a healthy young woman who will soon celebrate her 25th birthday. She lives in Columbus, Ohio and recently returned from a cruise where she and her husband enjoyed their first wedding anniversary.

As a Team Honored Hero, there were many TNT participants training in Lelia's honor. One day she looked at her dad, Bob Huber, and asked, "When are YOU going to do something in my honor?" That was all it took and Bob was officially signed up for his first Team In Training event, the Bermuda Marathon, in 1999. Since that year, Bob has completed twelve events as a participant and coached an additional twelve events for TNT. The North Face Endurance Challenge Series Georgia 50K will mark Bob's 25th event with TEAM. Who knew a simple request from a child would create such an amazing journey? Bob has also participated in LLS's Man & Woman of the Year campaign and is a dedicated LLS volunteer.

Here's a short Q&A with Lelia...

Little Lelia and Bob

Do you have any siblings?
Yes, a brother who is 3 ½ years younger. I was just getting my hair back when he was born.

What symptoms did you experience before you were diagnosed?

I was pale, lethargic and basically everything opposite of a typical two-year-old child. My parents took me to see their friend, who was an ER doctor. He suggested we go to the hospital immediately.

Describe your treatment protocol.

I spent the first month of treatment in the hospital. I was then released and continued to receive chemotherapy from home for about six months. I spiked a fever after each and every chemo treatment. I had 2 ½ years of treatment and 5 years of checkups every 3-6 months after being in remission. After 7 ½ years, I was considered cancer free and was told the chance of cancer returning was slim. I continued with extensive check-ups until I was 17 to ensure I did not experience side effects from the chemotherapy and treatments.

Since you were so young during treatment, what memories do you have from that time?

Two memories that stand out in my mind are my fear of receiving a spinal tap and running through the hospital hallways with a friend I met in the hospital.

Bob and Leila on her wedding day.

Do you have any suggestions for other children who have cancer and are going through treatment?

When I was young, I kept my cancer diagnosis a secret and only told my close friends. I suggest finding people that you can be yourself around. Don’t be afraid to be weird, angry, etc. Talk with a Child Life Specialist so they can get to know you. They can be some of your best help!

How did your dad get involved with Team In Training?

Being a TNT Honored Hero, there were so many people doing such great things for me. One day, I turned to my dad and asked when HE was going to do something for me!

Have you done a Team In Training event?

Yes, in 2003, when I was 14 years old, my dad and I did the Rock ‘n’ Roll Virginia Beach ½ Marathon. I had such a great time and it was so rewarding!

Where did you attend college?

I graduated from the University of Alabama and am now a Board Certified Music Therapist.

Do you feel your experiences growing up influenced your career choice?

Yes. I attended Camp Sunshine where I met many people who helped me in a variety of ways. I also had friends who worked with music therapists and I saw how much it helped them. I had an internship at a children’s hospital and an adolescent juvenile detention center. I always knew I wanted to give back!

Are you currently working?

Yes, I teach classes at Gymboree.

What are your hobbies?

I love playing with my 4-year-old dog, Grayson.

What are your goals for the next 10 years?

I would like to work as a music therapist. Have 1 or 2 children and I would love to do another TNT event.

Heartbreak Ends in Hope by Karen Cole

He falls out of skies.
He falls in love.
He falls snowboarding.
He lands a devastating diagnosis.

Valentine’s Day for many of us meant time spent with our one true love. For Signal Army Warrant Officer Phillip Dieppa four years ago, it was a true nightmare. What started out as a romantic getaway with his wife at a ski resort in West Virginia ended up changing Phillip’s life forever. A snowboarding accident on the eve of Valentine’s Day later resulted in a football-sized spleen on the verge of rupturing, a condition that would have ended his life in minutes. But tests after the accident also revealed even scarier news: Phillip had cancer. 

Phillip was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia and given a prognosis of just a few short years to live. Trained at hurling himself out of airplanes, this Iraq veteran had already endured more than most young people, but nothing prepared him for the battle of his life. Through it all, his wife Natasha served as his protective armor, but she also absorbed staggering heartbreak. Life with Phillip, who was just shy of 22 years old, might only last 3 to 5 more years.

Thankfully almost four years later, after countless bone marrow biopsies and grueling treatments, Valentine’s Day no longer marks the worst time of Phillip’s life. This February it reminds him of a battle fought hard and won, and finally being cancer free. Phillip and Natasha now have a brand new love – life.

Never backing down on a challenge, last summer Phillip joined Team In Training in Augusta. In November, he successfully ran the Savannah Rock 'n' Roll half marathon and raised more than $2,000 for the fight against blood cancers. Not only did he proudly complete his first race, he finished 160th out of 9,000 participants and was the first among TNT runners to cross the finish line!





Phillip with his wife after crossing the finish line in Savannah.

Now, Phillip is a Team In Training Honored Hero for the Augusta market where he serves as inspiration for others training and raising funds for LLS. He said, “I want to prove that cancer is only a temporary obstacle. Being a survivor is like being a marathoner, which is why the Team In Training program means so much to me.”

Phillip’s tenacious spirit is contagious; he gives us all great perspective in the face of any challenge, no matter how large or small:

“There are many unsolved variables in the equation that leads to finishing the half or full marathon. Are you running too fast? Will you hit your goal? Will you walk? Will you quit? Keep in mind there’s only one pace: forward. There is only one goal: the end. As long as you’re moving forward, you’re not quitting. That’s the mentality of a fighter, a soldier and a survivor.”

TNT alumni and survivor, Phillip Dieppa, completed his first event with TNT this past fall in Savannah, GA at the inaugural Savannah Rock 'n' Roll half marathon. Phillip is currently the team's Honored Hero for the Augusta market.

Story written by Karen Cole
Karen is a Public Relations Manager for UPS and has worked there for almost nine years. She completed the ING half marathon (2009) and the Nike Women's marathon (2010) as a TNT participant and served as a mentor in the fall of 2010 while training for and completing the Zooma half marathon. Karen has raised over $5,000 for TNT and now serves on our PR Committee.

New Year Brings New Language by Dani

Dani and her daughter at the 2010 Light The Night Walk

Last year’s language was the jargon of doctors and hospitals. Even the joy of discovering we were once again pregnant was overshadowed by the fear of whether or not my body would be capable of handling the stress. Last year’s language was that of a soldier in the trenches; attempting to lighten the situation by looking up and saying “well at least the sun is out.” My words of last year were my saving grace that created a language that brought me catharsis and human connection.

I am grateful that we have the opportunity to change our voice and create new words, new language, and new life. I look towards this year so differently than I did the last. Last year I was scared of what stood before me. Our future was uncertain. This year I have no more answers than I did last year; nor guarantees of anything. What we have is hope, faith and a little good news to set us on our path.

As the New Year rolled in I was overwhelmed by emotion. I looked to my future and I saw my husband and I growing old together, two little children playing with one another, family dinners, date nights where Mike and I try not to talk about some cute thing the kids did but just cannot seem to refrain, scrapped knees, first bikes, broken bones, broken hearts, family pets, bedtime stories, family vacations, “five more minutes,” road trips, kindergarten, grade school, high school, college visits, caps and gowns, weddings and more babies. I looked to my future and I saw my loving husband by my side, my beautiful children, my family, my friends. I saw hope and joy. I did not see cancer. Over the last year and a half, I often wondered if there would ever be a time when cancer was not a thread that wove its way through my every thought. The moment finally came.

I am sure that in the months and years to come, as PET scans and blood tests are due, there will be a breath of fear that grazes my cheek like a soft breeze. However, in this moment I was not only cancer free but free of cancer. They say it takes the body a year to recover from chemotherapy. They do not pontificate on the time it takes one’s brain or soul to recover from the experience of cancer. This hope for the future was my first real indication the healing has truly begun. The fortuitous thoughts coupled with prenatal hormones were too much for one healing soul to bear and I laughed as the warm tears streamed down my cheeks. Entering the New Year with tears of joy; I can think of no better language.

Happy New Year to you all and I hope your 2011 is filled with the language of love, peace and laughter, thank you for your continued support and love.

Dani, a non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma survivor, was the 2010 Summer triathlon team Honored Hero. Thank you for sharing with us Dani. You are our inspiration!

Open Letter to the TNT Fall Season Teams by Mitzi Jiles

Mitzi with her mom and dad at the Nike Women's Marathon

I can't believe that the Nike Women's Marathon is only six weeks away! What a season we have had so far! Friendships have been made, miles have been logged, money has been raised and we are hopefully only going to have cooler temps from here on out!. I just wanted to say with the race so close--Nike Team, it has been my honor to be your honored hero, THANK YOU! The encouragement, tenacity and support you all have graciously bestowed upon me has made me even more appreciative to be apart of the Team In Training family. So, with that, I wanted to share another aspect of why I am apart of TNT.

Yes, being a cancer survivor is a blessing. Yes, research for a cure is important. Yes, it's for those patients still fighting and those who lost their lives. But it's also so much more.

I've flashbacked to when I was sitting in the emergency room over 10 years ago waiting anxiously for my test results. At that moment I wish I could have been alone. I wish it could have just been me, the doctors nurses and anyone else who worked at the hospital, but it wasn't.

As I was in a daze being told terrible, change your life in a second, type of news.... there sat my mom.

Her eyes filled with tears, her heart breaking, her world crumbling...she had to witness the "you have cancer" diagnosis. The fact that she was a mere bystander to the words that I had Leukemia and that I could die in two weeks still haunts me! It's one of the most painful memories I have from my entire experience with cancer.

Parents should NEVER have to hear that the son/daughter they have raised, loved, and nurtured get diagnosed with a deadly disease. No matter how old they are.

When those words "you have cancer" came out of Dr. Morris's mouth I turned to my mom and I smiled. I told her that it was going to be ok. I was going to be fine and she had nothing to worry about. I became the parent. I comforted her. I was watching her watch me and all she saw was my life flashing before her eyes.

Why am I a part of Team In Training? Lance Armstrong said, it's because I have an obligation as a cancer survivor, but for me it's for the parents, siblings, family members, friends and caregivers. I hope there comes a day that they no longer have to hear someone they love is sick.

To all the members of Team In Training Fall events, what you have done this season has not only helped those who are sick but those caregivers who have been just as affected.... so, Thank You, Good Luck and GO TEAM!

Mitzi Jiles has been a part of Team In Training since 2007 and is doing her third TNT event with the 2010 Nike Women's Marathon, her first marathon. As an acute myeloid leukemia survivor for the last nine years, Mitzi is one of our Honored Heroes and motivates us all to continue the fight against cancer. Thank you Mitzi for the inspiration!

Honored Heroes, Jill, Dani and Lyndon Inspire

Below you will read several first hand perspectives from Team In Training Honored Heroes, Jill, Dani and Lyndon. The first is Jill's speech to a room full of TNT triathletes as they prepared to tackle the TriLatta Triathlon a couple of months ago. The second is an email from Dani to the Fall Season triathlon teams and the last is an email Lyndon sent to the Wilson 100 TNT cycling team. Prepare to be inspired! Thank you Jill, Dani and Lyndon.

Jill and Dani with the entire TriLatta triathlon team. Jill is cross legged
on the front left and Dani is in the white top in the front row.

Jill's Speech at the Tri-Latta Triathlon Inspiration Dinner on June 12, 2010

Welcome all the TNT Tri-athletes and athletic supporters (I’ve always wanted to say that!)

My name is Jill Powers and I’ve been invited to be your Honored Hero Speaker for this evening’s festivities. I’m a Non- Hodgkin’s Follicular Lymphoma Survivor and -- with your help -- I will continue to fight and one day I hope to live “Lymphoma Free” without the threat of the cancer coming back or developing another cancer as a side effect. Let’s just eradicate the crap out of cancer all together!!!

Let me share with you a little bit about what TNT means to me. I started participating in TNT events in late 2004 all because my sister, Annette, signed up for the Vancouver ½ Marathon in my honor shortly after I was diagnosed. This was one way she felt she could help me in my battle. I was so charged by her ambition, that I signed up as well for the Alaska ½ Marathon, which I completed in June 2005. Since then, I’ve become what I call “a TNT Junkie!” I can’t seem to get enough. It’s not about the events themselves or the challenges (ok maybe, a little,) but it’s about the mission, people, and family that I have made through my TNT journey – TNT just seems to be my kind of “Group Therapy.”

“Group Therapy” – you think I’m joking – but it’s no joke. TNT is the most positive place I could have put myself on this lifelong frustrating journey in the blood cancer battle. You see, my cancer is not curable. At least not today anyway. How many times will I have to make it to the treatment finish line? I have been through chemo and remission once…. I’ve already been there, done that and now I’m starting the journey all over again in July as a patient in a clinical trial.

I will be relocating to Houston, TX in July for 2-3 months for a clinical trial at MD Anderson Cancer Center and you can bet on it that TNT will be my “group therapy” while I am there. Keep your fingers crossed that it works. I’m doing my best to keep physically & mentally healthy so I won’t have to venture in to the land of a Bone Marrow Transplant any time soon.

You should be proud to know that the money you raise through TNT helps fund research and trials, like the one I will be doing.

So on the eve of this event , whether it’s your 1st or your 11th TNT event like me; be proud and hold your head up high (ok, not for the swim part unless spotting) and know that you are making a difference in the lives of many!! You may not have had a personal connection to blood cancers when you started your training 4 months ago, but I’m sure that’s changed now.

It always amazes me to hear the stories people share when you reach out to do something good for others. You learn so much not only about yourself, but about how small the world is and how connected we all are. Cancer is not picky; no one escapes this life without knowing someone who has it or is personally affected by it.

People tell me they are amazed by my attitude towards life & my cancer - let me tell you I’ve got “TUDE” and I’m sure that’s what gets me through sometimes or maybe it’s my stubbornness, but I’m going to kick cancer’s butt as many times as it takes! No pity party here! Move on with life, live it, take chances, and make the most of it. Just LIVE and enjoy the little moments as well as the big ones. And all of you help make it possible for me to have this attitude.

I am proud to call all of you teammates & more importantly teammates in the battle against Blood Cancers. I wish I would be able to see all of your shiny/salty faces as you cross the finish line tomorrow, but I think it will be the other way around; you will probably be waiting for me. As my Georgia Team can attest, I am pretty pokey. But I will finish with a smile on my face and a hug for each and every one of you! You are all rockstars and heroes in my book!!

Tomorrow morning as you get up early, correction-very early, enjoy every minute of the day! Even when you think you can’t go any further and want to give up – don’t – you’ve trained for this – you’ll get to the finish line!!

Again, many thanks for the millions of us whose lives are touched by the struggle with cancer. Every stroke you swim, mile you ride & run or walk tomorrow is one mile closer to a cure!!!!

One final note – I would like to personally dedicate my event tomorrow to Dani, the Georgia Chapter’s Honored Hero. She joins us this weekend with her family to celebrate life. Dani is currently in treatment and I wish her a long and happy life filled with love, laughter, health and only good memories of her cancer journey. Yes, there can and will be good, if not great memories.

Now go out there and kick some TNT Butt!!! GO TEAM!!!! ~ Jill

Dani's email sent to the TNT Triathlon Team on August 25, 2010

After the first week of classes, I am trying to go back to regular life.  After practically falling apart in my first class, and actually falling apart in my second class; I am beginning to realize that this year really happened.  I guess I thought that I may wake up some day and Ashton Kutcher would be there with a megaphone and a trucker hat telling me I had been punked.  Alas, I don’t think I will find Ashton in my bedroom any morning (damn) and this really did happen. 

I drove home from class, wondering if I had any business trying to help anyone considering my own current state of hysteria.  If a graduate level class and a simple assignment to state my fears can produce such emotional unrest perhaps I am only suited to cook dinner and knit blankets.  I daydream about becoming a Stepford wife, with no emotions, then remember that they all had long, beautiful hair and quickly rejoin reality. 

I am realizing there is no going back after cancer.  It is now a part of who I am.  It has changed the way I view the world and interact with people. I am no longer the same person I was, I am trying so hard to get back to who I was, to move on and away from this year, but perhaps I just cannot.  Perhaps, I am a different person now and I simply have to pick up and move forward, discovering myself all over again. 

I find myself getting angry; did I really spend a year kicking this thing physically just to turn around and have to process things emotionally?  Can we just be done?  I am sick of the word cancer, I am sick of cancer.  I am angry that my family and the family of so many others have been put through hell.  I am angry that I will forever live in fear that the cancer may come back in me or in someone I love.  I am scared that there will never be a day that cancer does not touch for the rest of my life.  I AM OVER CANCER.

Then I hear my beautiful daughter shrill from behind me and I am reminded, ever so quickly, what this is truly all about.  I am one of the lucky ones who get to be sick of cancer.  I am one of the lucky ones who have survived thus far.    Each breath I take is a gift, each day I have is another victory.

So I have traded my combat boots for flip-flops and I move about the day, trying to navigate the best I can.  I am reminded that I am no different from any other person on this planet; I do the best I can each day with the information and strength I have at the moment.

I guess, for all who are willing, I am welcoming you to join me on the journey back to life.  The journey after a cancer free diagnosis but not quite free of cancer.  The beauty of this process is that it is so cathartic for me; the fact that someone reads it is simply frosting.  Writing this stuff out, processing through and then sending it out to the universe (or cyberspace) is the most healing thing I do.  Thanks for loving us and praying for us!  We love each of you! ~ Dani

Lyndon

Lyndon's email sent to the TNT Wilson 100 Cycling Team on August 23, 2010

I'll be getting my second bone marrow transplant on Tuesday, August 31. The good news is, my 100 days of seclusion while my immune system rebuilds will be over in December, in plenty of time for the next cycling season. 100 days, like 100 miles, will go by one at a time, except for those parts where I'm totally in a daze and don't even realize how far I've gone. I think you know you're a cyclist when the last 20 miles get to be the bittersweet conclusion of months of preparation with the team instead of "Oh my god I'm not sure I can go 20 more miles..."

I'm not usually one to make a fuss, but if you want to follow my progress, look me up on http://www.caringbridge.com/. Where it says "Visit a website," enter my name, lsilloway.

To those who are riding this weekend's Century, may the wind be at your back, the gravel off the road, the dogs behind their fences, and the Gatorade cool and sweet like southern iced tea at a fine BBQ joint with red plaid plastic tablecloths. ~ Lyndon