March Madness

March is one of my favorite months. Growing up, I always looked forward to my birthday at the end of the month (psst...I still do). In college, it meant spring break and a week off from the perceived torture of engineering school. For the past several years, March has meant that the long, cold Minnesota winter is over and my weekend gardening and yard work projects are just around the corner.

For people like me, however, March is also a month when everything in life pauses to focus on sports. High schools and colleges crown their champions in basketball, hockey, even wrestling, in all levels and classes. Nearly all of it is on television. For a sports fan, it doesn't get much better. In my heart of hearts (as much as I sometimes try to deny it), I'm a sports fan and I've dived headlong into March Madness for as long as I can remember.

As a kid in the small southern Minnesota town of New Ulm, my friends and I raced home from school to watch the state high school basketball tournaments - especially the year our hometown Eagles made the boys' tournament (no, they didn't win). As a freshman at North St. Paul High School, I joined thousands of Polar fans as our hockey team beat their archrivals from hated Hill-Murray and went to state (nope, they didn't win either). And as a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, I followed the Golden Gopher hockey team to the Frozen Four in Providence, Rhode Island and cheered them to...third place. (Hey, it was still a good time.)

But even without a vested personal interest, there is an excitement about watching high school championships and college tournaments (both small and large) at this time of year that is somehow unmatched by fall or spring sports. Perhaps it's because so many of us live in places where we're stuck inside watching games, either in person or on television, for five months and need an outlet for our pent-up enthusiasm. In any case, we watch hundreds of teams and thousands of athletes - many of whom will never pull on a uniform again - putting forth every effort with the hope of raising their hands in victory.

And when any of these teams of young unknowns achieve their goal and hoist the championship trophy, a part of this sports fan feels the excitement and is lifted up, with the belief that success, in any form, is always possible for those who are willing to give of themselves.

In recent years, I've also enjoyed March because it means that I still have a couple of months to go before getting serious about training for the annual Breast Cancer 3-Day, usually held in August or September. Oh, maybe I'll take a short walk around the neighborhood to get some fresh air...if it's a nice day. But that's not training. It's too early for that madness.

A few weeks ago, I took a short walk on a Sunday afternoon. It was a little chilly and there was about a foot of snow on the ground. But the sun was out and I was sitting in the house, bored out of my mind.

The following weekend, I joined a few of my 3-Day teammates for a "kickoff" training walk around a local lake. I wasn't planning on going, but I had been threatened with physical violence if I didn't show up. Besides, it was just a ceremonial thing, not real training. It was still too early for that. I also took a walk on Sunday. I wasn't training; it was just too nice a day to stay inside.

Over the past three weeks, a couple of co-workers have persuaded me to join them to walk over the lunch hour. It's a good excuse to get out of the office, partake in some semi-interesting conversation, and get a little exercise. We've been out walking almost every day.

Okay, I admit it...even with nearly five months to go before the Twin Cities 3-Day, this is starting to feel a little like actual training.

Now that's what I call March Madness.

Move Your Feet

Last week, I rented the documentary film, “An Inconvenient Truth”. As an admitted global warming skeptic, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about with this movie, which centers around former Vice President Al Gore’s oft-given presentation on climate change and our role in its cause and effects – and resolution.

The movie was, in large part, as I expected. Gore presents the data gathered by scientists over the past 40 years as proof that humans have pumped so much pollution into the air, in the form of carbon dioxide and methane (and though he didn’t mention it, tons of hot air spewed by politicians), that there have been profound changes, beyond the planet’s natural cycle, to the environment in which we live.

I’m an engineer, by trade, and my education and work experiences have taught me to appreciate information developed by well-thought out, scientific means. As presented, there seems to be little doubt as to the cause of the observed changes. (Yes, I still have a two pages of questions I wrote down, most starting with the phrase, “But how do they know…”)

Yet the item that caught my attention wasn’t one of the charts showing increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. Nor was it one of the many pictures of the rapid change in the landscape of various mountains and forests and glaciers. It was a quote, of sorts, displayed on the screen during the closing credits.

“When you pray, move your feet.” - African proverb

The prayer, like the film, is a call to action and the unintended reference to the Breast Cancer 3-Day was unmistakable. Move your feet. Make a change.

I don’t think I’m spoiling the ending to “An Inconvenient Truth” by telling you that it offers a suggested list of ways each of us can make a difference. Some of these are things that many of us are already doing, some are things we should be doing more of, and some are things that we may not be doing at all. Here are a few of the easy ones:

· Recycle every scrap of paper, shard of glass, piece of plastic, and metal can. Every item thrown in the trash ends up buried in a landfill. As citizens, we generously fund the facilities that recycle everything from appliances and old televisions to computers and phone books and cardboard boxes. Make use of these places.

· Reduce home energy use by replacing regular light bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures with compact fluorescent bulbs, which use less the ¼ of the electricity used by a standard bulb and last more than four times as long. Replacing one standard bulb in each of the 110 million American households is equivalent to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by taking 1.3 million cars off the road.

· Speaking of cars, it easy to suggest that we need to drive less, though it may seem difficult to do in practice. It isn’t that hard. And when you do drive, do yourself (and me) a favor – slow down. Gas mileage decreases upwards of 20% or more at speeds of more than 60 mph. And from personal experience, I can tell you that reducing my speed from 65-70 mph to 60-65 mph also reduces one’s stress level dramatically. I’m sure we could all use that.

· While I’m on the subject, more of us should be driving more fuel-efficient vehicles. Why the bloody hell do you need to drive a Ford F350 super-size pickup or GMC Yukon XL extended SUV for your 30-mile commute to an office? Such vehicles gulp gas by the tankful, increase wear and tear on our roads and increase traffic congestion.

The Breast Cancer 3-Day consists of thousands of people doing the equivalent of replacing light bulbs and conserving gas. They are raising millions of dollars to make real changes in people's lives. The money goes to research, conducted by doctors, in order to develop new treatments for their patients, resulting in more survivors. Ultimately, these continued incremental changes will bring a cure to breast cancer.

And all we have to do is say our prayers and move our feet.

The Reason For The Season

On Saturday, I joined a group of people on a training walk to unofficially kick off the 2007 Breast Cancer 3-Day walking season. I’m sure a lot of walkers have been in training mode for some time now, either on indoor treadmills or by taking advantage of modestly acceptable weather outside. (I even ventured out last Sunday afternoon, braving a chilly, post-snowstorm wind, to put in a few miles.)

Last week, I caught up with the latest news regarding one of my survivor friends; news that reminded me of the reason for all this walking.

Jill and I worked together for a short time several years ago, until she moved on to another job with a different company. Admittedly, our contact with each other became intermittent at best, although we kept in touch via mutual friends. In January 2005, Jill was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. It was – as it always seems to be – a surprise to an otherwise healthy, 30-something mother of two beautiful young girls, Anna, age 2 and Isabella, 4 months.

She began chemotherapy, first taking six cycles of a combination of two drugs, Adriamyacin and Cytoxan, and then four more cycles of a drug called Taxotere. There would be others over the course of the next two years – Abraxane and Carboplatin and Avastin and Navelbine and Zometa, the latter of which was used to strengthen her bones, particularly her spine, where the cancer later spread.

She lost her hair and was sick for days following each chemo treatment. Her emotions ranged from crying uncontrollably, to cheering the work the drugs were doing on the cancer cells, to laughing at how her daughters referred to her wig as “the lady” when they saw it sitting on its styrofoam head.

Despite the seemingly endless chemo and radiation treatments, Jill has continued to live a full life, working and praying and having fun and raising her children and traveling with her family, taking vacations to Massachusetts and Hawaii and Alaska. She’s been so lucky and so blessed to have a loving husband, named Keith, and many friends and relatives to help her, especially during a not-so-good day (or a not-so-good week!).

The roller-coaster ride of treatments and tests and praying and crying and more treatments has gone on for more than two years. She has gone many weeks at a stretch with no pain or discomfort. And, of course, she has experienced periods of time when she’s felt like crap. She’s felt the fear of being diagnosed, the joy of seeing a scan that shows a cancer-free body, and the anger at hearing the news that the cancer had returned.

But she is a fighter. She screams and swears at the cancer and will never accept her fate as just another victim. And she has hundreds of people in her army – family, friends, colleagues, other survivors – supporting her and praying for her. She’s now starting a new series of chemo treatments, which she hopes will kill the cancer in her bones and keep it from spreading to her organs. Ultimately, there is no cancer cell that stands a chance against her.

Her battle continues. She believes that as long as there are available treatment options, there is hope. I believe that she survives because her work on this Earth is not finished.

My work isn’t finished either. It’s time to start walking again…for Jill.

What's Really Important

Over the past several months, the news media has provided front-page, lead story coverage of the comings and goings of the most important and influential people in our culture. Every salacious detail in the lives (and in one case, death) of Britney, Paris, Lindsay, Brad/Angelina/Jennifer, and Anna Nicole has been served, fresh and hot, to be instantly devoured by a public only too eager to beg for more.

The endless paparazzi photos and video of such meaningful contributors to society is occasionally interrupted with images from Iraq or the latest on who is (or isn’t) running for president – in an election that is still 20 months away. Here in Minnesota, a couple of back-to-back, bona-fide snowstorms drowned out everything this past week, including the recent “dip” in the stock market, which was initially viewed as a potentially cataclysmic event by drooling reporters and commentators. But that’s a story for another day.

I’ve often wondered why we spend so much time being interested in – even obsessed with – people and things that have no appreciable effect on our own lives. Doesn’t it make far more sense to be devoted to monitoring the well-being of our parents, children, siblings, and other relatives, as well as the friends, neighbors and co-workers, whom we see everyday?

In December of 2003, my friend Stacey was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was healthy, active, didn’t smoke or drink, and was the last person I thought would get such a disease. Fortunately, the cancer was caught early. She underwent a double mastectomy, along with reconstructive surgery, and six doses of chemotherapy. After all was said and done, she was pronounced cancer-free. In fact, as the weeks and months passed, it was hard to know if Stacey had ever been sick.

While Stacey was going through chemo, I wanted to do something to support her. I had taken her friendship for granted and decided that I wouldn't miss any opportunity to show her that she was important to me. I wanted to do more than donate a few dollars to breast cancer research. Then I heard about the Breast Cancer 3-Day. Without comprehending the magnitude of “three days, 60 miles”, I immediately knew I had found my “something”.

I walked in the 2004 Twin Cities Breast Cancer 3-Day for Stacey. I heard stories from those who sponsored me about their own experiences with breast cancer. So I walked for them, too. And, like a lot of other walkers, I walked because I could... and because others couldn’t.

I walked in the 2005 and 2006 3-Day events because I enjoyed being with hundreds, if not thousands, of women in walking shorts and sports bras for three days (and two nights). Okay, that’s not entirely true. The thought that breast cancer can strike virtually anyone at any time, without the person actually doing anything specific, unnerved me. You didn't have to smoke or eat red meat and you couldn't catch it from someone else who had it. After the 2004 3-Day, I couldn’t just say that I done my part and was done with it. I was “involved” now. I realized how thankful I was that the women closest to me – my mom and sister and nieces and aunts and cousins and friends and neighbors and co-workers – were all healthy and cancer-free. And I wanted to make sure they stayed that way.

I don’t always think about them. Like everyone else, I get caught up in the busyness of my day – going to work, taking care of my home, figuring out what to make for dinner. But the thought of being a part of the 3-Day and why it’s important is never far away.

I will soon be joining my teammates to begin training for the 2007 3-Day. I won’t be spending time watching mindless television sitcoms or reality shows or cable news programs speculating on what major geo-political, socio-economic disaster will strike next. I’ll be spending that time with people who matter to me.

Somehow, I don’t think Britney will mind.