I'm not selling girl scout cookies...

So, I had this pretty amazing, eye-opening experience this past Saturday.

We train as a team two times a week -- Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Well, at Saturday's practice, our honored teammate was there. This is the person the team is doing the triathlon for (individually, I am also competing in honor of my Aunt Ginny, Uncle Joe, and Mrs. Ju). Her name is Eileen. She told us her story:

She's 43 years old, and two years ago she was diagnosed with Lymphoma. She had been having symptoms for a while, but she just thought is was stress with work and her parents passing away. One day she found a lump in her armpit, so she went to the doctor. They removed it and called to tell her she had cancer. The doctor told her she is stage 4. He said there's good news and bad news. "There are two types of this cancer, aggressive and non-aggressive. You have the non-aggressive type. The bad news is that there is no treatment for it. If I had diagnosed you four years ago, I would have told you that you had 3 - 5 years to live. This is four years later though." (We can all do the math here.) He continues, "There is a new drug out now that has extended the life expectancy to 8 - 10 years. We're going to put you on that." (Again, we can all do the math.) "You should live like you're going to live. We're getting closer everyday to finding a cure, so keep up your hopes and live your life like you're going to live."

After she tells us all of this, she looks at us and says, "Thank you guys for doing what you're doing. You're not selling girlscout cookies so that I can go to camp. You're raising money so that I can live. Thank you."

This hit me hard. Don't get me wrong, I knew I was doing this for a cause. It's one thing to have this idea, but it's another thing to have someone who's dying of cancer telling you thank you for trying to save my life. Hits home a little bit more -- the responsibility (outside of training) in doing this thing.

So I just want to thank you again for supporting me in this endeavour. Thank you for helping me to save Eileen's life! It's amazing the little things that mean so so so much.