MILE$ FOR MONEY

We are home after a lovely wedding for my daughter! Scott is keeping up his biking legs while also resting to ease the deep, pervasive fatigue from 2900 miles in. Mind you, he rarely complains but we know the fatigue is there!  We are excited for an event Tanner Motors is sponsoring on  this Saturday September 30, 2023 in Brainerd, a 10:00 am bike ride from Tanner Motors to the Paul Bunyan trail and back, and a community celebration at 11:00 with food, t-shirts, and many great prizes. Grand Prize is a dog sledding adventure from Points Unknown! If you are in Minnesota, I hope you can join us at this terrific event. Next week we head to Rochester for the Mayo tests and treatment. We are trying to keep the upcoming appointments out of the forethought of our brains, but it seeps in. Scott has been through surgery, radiation, chemo and is still on Lupron hormone therapy. He is scheduled for his next injection at Mayo (assuming nothing different comes forward on the blood tests o...

 Scott is 2900 miles, 17th state, into this 11,000-mile cycle trip of the perimeter states.  We started on June 26 th in NW Minnesota. We just stopped in Virginia Beach, VA: Scott has cycled through the Northern tier to Bar Harbor Maine, then down the East Coast. He has cycled through mountains, horrible weather with both heat advisories, air quality advisories, heavy wind, and torrential rain. He has run into dead ends, bad washed-out trails,  ( where he carried his bike,) poor routes, heavy traffic, and limited narrow shoulders. But he persists and he determinedly goes forward day after day, week after week, to make his dreams come true. He wants to honor the life he has been given, and Benny's while making this life long dream come true. Scott is stage 4 prostate cancer. When the cancer metastasized to his bones (and multiple lymph nodes), a cure was no longer possible. (Scott’s reminder: early detection saves lives! Get your PSA checked men- Scott will be getting h...

  Scott is almost 2700 miles into this 11,000-mile cycle trip! Today he is biking fron just outside of Washington DC to Fredericksburg VA, which will be his 17th state.   Scott is doing fantastic! His mental, emotional, and physical stamina is  truly extraordinary.   If you have followed Scott’s story, you know that he was 53, healthy, very active and completely uninterested in having a physical when I pestered him ( true statement) about getting a checkup.   He had zero symptoms and felt great when he was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. The cancer was found through a simple blood test, a PSA test. It was confirmed with a biopsy.   At that time Scott did not know what a PSA test was and had not had one done before.  It was a real punch in the gut to both of us. Scott and I were married late fall of 2017.  All but the first two months of our marriage has been an ongoing cancer battle. When it is not directly in our forethought ...

  Scott is 2400 into the Miles for Money cycle journey. The picture is of Scott biking to the top of the highest point in NJ, High Point State Park. Today is his fifth day biking in a row, having completed over 14,000 elevation gain over those last five days. To put that in perspective, it is like biking up Mount Whitney (14,494), the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. How does someone with stage 4 prostate cancer, currently treating with Lupron, do that?   Good question. I have always called Scott “magic Scott” and I named him well. September is prostate cancer awareness month. As our Miles for Money journey is about raising funds and awareness for prostate cancer and schizophrenia, for the next month we will focus on prostate cancer. Scott is currently treating with Lupron. Lupron takes away all Scott’s testosterone as testosterone feeds prostate cancer. Taking away testosterone is known to cause various affects such as a loss of energy, muscle, and bone density. Thi...

  Scott is headed into his 12 th and 13 th state today, from the Boston area into and through Rhode Island all the way to Connecticut.    Tonight, we are staying at a campground, which gives us an opportunity to pump out the camper tanks, fill up the water tank and do laundry.   We usually stay at a campground on Scott’s days off from biking to allow us to catch up with these chores. How do we do the boon docking?  First, like almost everything these days, I learned much from the internet and the Facebook groups.  Prior to setting out on this 11,000 mile journey we heard you could stay at Walmart, Cabela’s,  Cracker Barrell, Denny’s, IHOPS,  and even some national park lands.  Many sites have ideas and lists about where to boon dock.  Like all else on the internet – not all information is correct.    So far the only store we tried was Walmart – but in each instance both Walmarts’ said no overnight parking!  ...

  We have really enjoyed our time in the Northeast. We are as far north and we are going, and starting the trek south along the East Coast.   This week I am focusing on raising awareness on Schizophrenia.   Dr. Arun Nagendra, who works with Schizophrenia & Psychosis Action Alliance, the non-profit we   are supporting for our mission, shared some thoughts. Thank you, Dr. Nagendra!   Those with schizophrenia are about ten to twelve times more likely to commit suicide than the general public. A key contributor to this tragedy is those with the illness rarely receive the treatment they need. In a given year, less than half of those with schizophrenia receive  any  care, let alone the quality of care that we know leads to the best outcomes. The gold standard of treatment involves an integrated treatment team – consisting of a psychiatrist trained in high-quality medication management, individual therapy that promotes autonomy and resilience,...

  Scott is 1700 miles into cycling, presently biking from Bethel Maine to Sidney Maine.  He is holding up great to the various challenges.  I have been asked to talk about how Samantha and Puck are doing!   I admit I was very worried about how traveling would be for the dogs. For Samantha, she loves car rides but I was worried about her age. She is a toothless, somewhat deaf 5-pound senior citizen but feisty as all get out and bossing us all.  Puck is your typical loving young golden retriever. At 85 pounds he just wants to be in your lap.  But he does not like car rides, and he needs the ability to run. So of course, I was concerned about how both would do on this trip.   They are doing fantastic.  First, they love just being with us.  Puck seems to tolerate but not love the time in the truck.  Sammie loves it.  Puck sticks his head on the back seat and DOES NOT MOVE the whole time I am driving.  Sammie looks out all the windo...