Monday, June 11, 2007
The Adventure Begins
The Adventure Begins: June 16, 2007 at 10:00am At A&S BMW Motorcycles, 1125 Orlando Ave, Roseville, CA 95661
The Message: Most people think that a diagnosis of cancer means life as they know it is over. There are thoughts of being confined to a bed, hair falling out, fatigue being unbearable, nausea and all the other side effects being be tortuous. In fact there is some truth to this but Dell and Doug are riding to raise awareness that it is possible to live a full life even with cancer. Their message is to tell everyone cancer patients can do almost anything they make their minds up to do. Please Consider A Donation to the Sutter Cancer Center. To find out why and how, visit http://www.dellfields.com/Donation.html.
The Challenge: On June 16th at 10am Dell Fields (a cancer patient) and Doug Holck will be getting on their BMW R1150 GS Adventure motorcycles and heading north to the Arctic Circle. They will end the first phase of their adventure on the dirt of the Dempster Highway at 66 degrees 33' N. They intend to continue their journey by visiting the Arctic Circle a second time; but this time on the Dawson Highway in Alaska.
Many motorcyclists do this trip every year. It is challenging but for the most part, if well planned, it is not physically demanding and there are certainly other routes or trips Dell and Doug could have chosen that would be harder. The route they have chosen is an example of how Dell is dealing with the challenge of cancer. Clearly his cancer side effects will make this trip harder than it would be for a healthy person but for him it should be doable.
In Dell's Own Words: Among other things I am a colon cancer patient. I was first diagnosed in February of 2002. When my cancer was discovered it was stage III having spread to my lymph nodes. After colon surgery and chemotherapy I felt lucky to have beaten this disease. My wife and I celebrated by taking a trip to Germany. Upon our return to the States we bought a BMW K1200LT motorcycle. We planned to do two-up traveling.
But in fact my battle had only just begun. My cancer soon returned but this time it had spread to my liver. Again I had surgery to remove more of my colon and part of my liver. More chemotherapy followed. Again my liver tumors returned and I participated in a clinical trial at Stanford University Medical Center that seemed promising until new tumors began to grow and the cancer spread to my lungs. Over the past five years I have had four different types of chemotherapy, two colon resections, five liver tumor ablations, one lung tumor ablation, and two chemo embolizations. The list of ancillary issues such as fistulas, picc lines, mediports, effusions, neuropathy, vaso vegas, anaphylactic shock, and much more goes beyond the scope of this paragraph. (for a deeper view click on:
http://www.dellfields.com/mycancer.html) It is sufficient to say that cancer has been a tremendous challenge to my body and soul.
