Mark Trostle's Team In Training Page
Surviving Changes Everything
Welcome to my Team In Training home page and thank you for taking the time to read my story.
Going through life many of us will be touched one time or another by some form of cancer. It's a tough and uneasy fact that we have to deal with. I'm not much different than you or the person sitting beside you at work, the person standing next to you on the train or the person talking behind you in the waiting line. The only difference is I'm 33 years old and a have been in remission for 15 years. Having endured 12 months of chemo therapy, multiple surgeries and batteries of tests, I’m a survivor of Hodgkin’s disease.
Surviving cancer during your childhood has a way of leaving you with less while wanting more out of life. You’re still filled with all the emotions, thoughts, dreams and nightmares as before, but now you know the world is a bigger place than it was just a few minutes ago. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about surviving cancer, how it’s changed my life, influenced the choices I’ve made and how that one moment in a doctor's office placed me on the path to where I currently am in life.
I’ve been told that being a survivor means you have a second chance. A chance to do all the things you wished to do, to live your life a better way, to see and do things you only dreamed, or just enjoy the simplistic beauty of the changing seasons. I tend to look at it as I’m living on borrowed time and I’m still making choices in life when life tried to make a choice for me. The one true given is you never take a sunrise or sunset for granted.
As a way of giving back to those who helped save my life, I’m training to participate in an endurance event as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training. Team In Training is raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I'm completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers.
For those who know me, I’ve been an avid Mt. Biker the past 5 years and have recently made the transition to road riding. The event I’ve chosen to train for is the Seagull Century (100 miles) on October 4th, 2008.
I ask for your help by making a tax deductible donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance the Society's mission. To the left of my bio is a tab to make your donation. Feel free to pass my story and website along to family members, friends, loved ones and co-workers who wish to make a difference in someone’s battle with blood cancers. Every donation helps in achieving my assigned goal.
Thank you for taking the time to share my story. I hope you'll visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. Thanks for your support!
Remember yesterday, live today and dream tomorrow........
