Winter Season - Week 17

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true. ~ Leon J. Suenes

Fundraising Tip
Email your monthly update reminding others to donate. This is a great way to keep people up to date with your training and fundraising progress. It's also a great time to update your potential donors on your honored patients status.

Frequently Asked Questions
WHY IS THERE A FUNDRAISING DEADLINE?
Team In Training is first and foremost a fundraising program. The primary goal is to raise funds for blood cancer research. In light of this objective, we take your commitment to raise the fundraising minimum seriously. We want all Team In Training participants to be successful in raising at least the minimum, and we have structured the program to provide as much support as possible. At the final deadline date, two weeks before your event, if you have not reached the fundraising minimum, we will place the remaining amount on your credit card. In the event that your credit card must be charged, you will have an additional month to fundraise (30 days after your event). The Society will reimburse you any additional funds collected up to the amount that you personally contributed. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has a national “no deals” policy. The preceding procedures are designed with the intent of maintaining the integrity of the TNT program, and to be true to our mission of finding a cure for leukemia.

TNT In The News
Charlotte Observer

She has Sprinted Past Adversity
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/1092353.html
By Joe Marusak
At 7 a.m. on a recent Saturday, Gatewood Campbell stretched outside the Birkdale cinemas with other members of her running team. Soon she was off on a 10-mile practice run through Lake Norman neighborhoods. Four years ago, Campbell considered herself overweight. Run three times a week? Not in this working mom's day planner. Then she was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy that caused seizures. Twice she lost consciousness and fell. Always the organizer, Campbell suddenly had trouble remembering the simplest things. "I'd go to make coffee and get the water in, but forget to put the grounds in," she said. That recipe she made so often? She now had to write the ingredients down. Campbell had to leave her job with a Huntersville nonprofit, but the condition opened a new life to her, she said. Campbell, 36 and a mother of two, has since raised about $10,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society by running a half- and full marathon through the organization's Team-in-Training national fundraising effort.

Mission Moment
Abby
TX
United States
Living with ALL for 1 year, 9 months
Age: 5
It will be difficult to forget May 9, 2006, yet we have such a hard time remembering the details of that day. That morning, we took our 3 year old daughter in to our family doctor for the second time in 5 days. The symptoms by this time were unmistakable to her doctor: fever, leg pain, swollen lymph nodes and incredible bruises. We were sent for blood work at our local hospital, and were given the results back at the doctor's office...Abby has leukemia. We were immediately sent from our small town to a nearby city, to a wonderful pediatric oncologist. After an initial exam at his office, we checked in to the Children's Hospital next door, which would become our home for the next 29 days.

During that first stay, Abby was found to have Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). At some point later, testing showed Abby also has the Philadelphia Chromosome, which makes treatment very difficult.

Now, after 5 months in and out of the hospital, and many medicines later, we are finally feeling like we can breathe again. We are adjusting to life with a child on chemo (and sometimes steroids!), we have cried at the loss of her beautiful blonde hair, and we have rejoiced each time a FISH test comes back clear. It is still a long road...6 more months of high and intermediate dose chemo, then 2+ years on maintenance. Our faith in God has gotten us this far, and we know that He will sustain and strengthen us until the day Abby is healed.