This is the story of James Curtis, the winner of the RS Cap competition we held on our social network for Team Radioshack fans earlier this year. James is a cancer survivor, and below you will find his story.
My story is like many other stories of survival from Cancer. I have been an avid cyclist all of my life, but got away from riding when my kids were very young. They are now 16 and 14 years old.
I got back on the bike about 10 years ago as part of an effort to lose weight and get back in shape. Three years ago - 10-30-2007, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). I was 50, and in perfect health. I was cycling about 180 miles per week and running about 10 per week. I started to feel fatigued over the summer of 07 and finally went to the DR where they found my white cells to be extremely low. BTW, I rode back to back metric century rides 3 weeks before my diagnosis. (I was wondering why I had little energy to climb the hills. I love climbing.)
In any event, my bone marrow would not function after induction chemo so I had to have a peripheral stem cell transplant. To my great fortune my older brother was a perfect match. He donated 6 million cells and saved my life. I had the procedure done at the Fred Hutchinson Center in Seattle, WA. We had to relocate the entire family to Seattle for 5 months. My wife had to shoulder the burden of the entire move to the west coast as well as become my primary caregiver at Hutch.
It has been almost 2 1/2 years since the transplant and I have never felt better. I am still on about 22 prescriptions daily, but steroids have been reduced so I have been able to lose about 35 lbs since January of this year.
I returned to work in November, 2008. - I work in IT for a major health insurance company - have been with them for 27 years. They are partly responsible for my recovery in that they flew me to Seattle originally on the company plane because I was neutropenic (no white cells to fight infection) and they have paid almost all of my medical bills and held my job while I was out for just over 1 year. I have about 8 doctors of all types that I utilize now to help me maintain my health - I am a project manager so it is like have a high functioning project team - very productive but at times difficult to manage!!
I did have a setback this past February - I had a heart attack - my LAD artery became 100% blocked. (possibly due to medications used to treat graft vs. host disease from the transplant) Anyway, I have had 2 stents placed in my arteries. Since the heart attack I have felt quite good. I got back on the bike again in earnest at the end of May and have ridden myself back into shape since then. I am up to about 80-100 miles per week - I cannot keep the pace nor handle the hills like I used to, but that will come in time.
During the entire process of my illnesses and recovery, support from friends, relatives and co-workers has been enormous - many times moving me to tears as I received their generous offers of help and counsel. I literally could not believe that folks would pay such attention to my situation and take the time (and money!) to help my family and me through the darkest times and back into well being.
I have done a few things to give back what I have received - raising $$ for the Louisville "Ride to Conquer Cancer" last year - I was not able to ride since I was still not feeling well enough. And of course I sign up for all of the research programs that Fred Hutchinson offers. It is the least I can do.
One brush with greatness that I can relate - my younger brother ran into Lance Armstrong at a Starbucks near Philadelphia in December, 2007. My brother dropped Lance a note telling him of my situation - and that I was going to have a bone marrow transplant soon out in Seattle. Lance was gracious enough to write me a brief note wishing me good luck on my upcoming BMT - I shared that note many times over with many folks that I have met along the way and they have gained inspiration from it as much as I did. One can read or say many things about Lance Armstrong - but he walks the talk and has provided motivation and energy to thousands of people like myself.
By James Curtis
