The Relay for Life

Over the past 24 hours, a few dozen teams have been walking and running around a track at Stanford's Roble field in the Relay for Life 2007. It's an American Cancer Society fund-raising event that provides an excellent opportunity to honor cancer survivors and to remember loved ones. (Here's a promotional video.) Alice and I participated as part of Google's team for the first two hours yesterday, and I returned for an hour of running at 5:45 a.m. this morning. Some of the highlights for me were getting to know a few other cancer survivors (a middle-aged engineer/guitarist and a couple of Stanford students), meeting a former ACS vice president, and joining in the survivor's victory lap.

Before this event, I'd only told my cancer story to a handful of people. After meeting a few other survivors and hearing the stories, I realize the importance of each person sharing their experience. Of course some people's ordeals are worse than others, and some people's stories are better than others. Regardless, each victory merits celebration -- not only for the life of the individual, but for bringing us one step closer to a world in which cancer is nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

No time now, but I promise to share my cancer story in an upcoming post.