Triathlete races past breast cancer

After nearly every joke and inspirational anecdote Nancy Reinisch told the crowd, they exploded with applause. Valley View Hospital’s lobby was packed to the gills with people, mostly women, who were letting out shrieks and whoops and hollers. Though they were there, ostensibly, to celebrate the release of Reinisch’s new book, “Chemosabee: A Triathlete’s Journey through the First Year of Breast Cancer,” they had truly come to celebrate Reinisch.

“To feel so loved is a wonderful thing,” Reinisch said, after the party.

As one of her readers wrote. ” I love this book! It’s a cross between the New England Journal of Medicine and ESPN Sports Center, with a touch of Oprah!”

While she, of course, downplayed it, not many people have a story quite like hers. A self-described “adult onset athlete,” Reinisch is a triathlete who didn’t start exercising until she was 34. That was 1987, and she’s since completed hundreds of triathlons. When, in 2006, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she tackled it in a fashion that blew people away. She didn’t stop her life, didn’t give up her exercising. Instead, she used it to help her get through that trying time. The book chronicles her experience — one that had obviously touched the entire lobby of women.

“She’s a great lady,” said Melissa Miller, dabbing tears out of her eyes.

As a member of Reinisch’s Roaring Fork Women’s Triathlon Team, Miller was deeply affected by how Reinisch dealt with her illness. For the most part, she explained, Reinisch was her “chipper self” — one who still got up in the dark to train. That created a resolve in Miller. Though she had only done the swimming leg at her first triathlon, after watching Reinisch’s year of cancer, she completed her first, full race.

“She’s definitely an inspiration,” Miller said.

Standing nearby, Elaine Grossman used almost the exact same words. A cancer survivor and a founder of the Quality of Life Cancer Project, Grossman spoke of the “grace” Reinisch brings to her survivorship. Reinisch’s unwavering fortitude gets to Grossman.

“I would say Nancy is a thriver. She’s not (just) a survivor,” Miller said.

As Resa Hayes put it, “If anyone could charge through this, it’s Nancy.”

Full Story: Cancer survivor an inspiration to many

Related Posts: Memoirs of an Ironman

Rhodes scholarship or the NFL?

Florida State safety Myron Rolle was recently awarded a Rhodes scholarship.  He is the first major-college football player of his generation to win what is considered the world’s most prestigious postgraduate academic scholarship.

He became the most prominent student-athlete to win the award since Bill Bradley at Princeton in 1965. Bradley was later a Knicks star, a senator and a presidential candidate. Other winners have included Pat Haden (U.S.C. and the Rams) and Tom McMillen (Maryland and the N.B.A. and Congress).

Rolle, a preseason All-ACC and All-America candidate, is an astounding anomaly in a sport synonymous with low graduation rates and dumbed-down majors. He’s a 3.75 pre-med student who will finish his undergraduate degree in just two-and-a-half years; a National Leadership Honor Society inductee; the recipient of a $4,000 research grant for his work studying human mesenchymal stem cells and the facilitator of a health and living program at a charter school run by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Rolle, an aspiring neurosurgeon, will now decide between the NFL and an all-expense paid scholarship for two or three years of study at Oxford University in England.

Rolle’s quest to the win the Rhodes had received heavy attention from the news media because he chose to risk missing all or part of Florida State’s pivotal game at Maryland to have the interview, which took place in Birmingham, Ala.

Don Lemon (CNN) profiles a college football player who has to choose between a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and the NFL.

Ten NGOs Helping People Around The World

Adam Bender - inspiration goes national

Back in November we published a story on the inspiring young man, Adam Bender.  Adam lost his leg when he was one year old but that has never held him back.  He plays baseball, football, soccer and wrestles.

ESPN writer Jeremy Schaap recently filmed a short story on Adam that airs on E:60.  This is a wonderful piece that all should enjoy.

You can read the text of Jeremy’s story - The Power of One.  A short excerpt of Jeremy’s story is below:

A year ago, when Adam Bender was 7 years old, he found a wheelchair in his family’s garage.

Standing just outside the garage, the door open, he called out to his mother, Michelle. “Mom,” he said, “come here.”

Pointing inside at the rusty, folded-up wheelchair, he said, “What’s that doing here?” Anger was floating in the air.

“That’s here just in case of an emergency,” she said. “We might need it if you hurt your leg.”

“Get it out of here,” Adam said. “Get rid of it.”

“What do you want me to do with it?” Michelle asked.

“I don’t know. Get rid of it. I’m never using it.”

Hero Dog - highway rescue in Chile

See this amazing video of one dog rescuing another dog during rush hour on a highway in Chile.  The scene was captured by video traffic cameras.  The injured dog is seen being hit by a vehicle and then another dog pulls the first one to safety.

Zinhle Thabethe - raising AIDS awareness

Why is Zinhle Thabethe an Everyday Hero?

Zinhle Thabethe is a positive person. She is HIV-positive yes, but she is also positive that HIV is yet another challenge that South Africa can beat.

She likens the challenge to that of apartheid and how South Africans came together and rallied around the cause to bring down a regime that was determined to destroy us. But it didn’t. It made us stronger. And that’s what Zinhle believes can and should happen around HIV.

Zinhle is not a doctor or scientist; in fact she has very little formal education. But she knows HIV and is determined to empower other people with this knowledge.

Why? Because she believes that all she needs is a moment to clarify and simplify and unpack the issues that are scary to people. Because fear and ignorance are still two of the most dangerous attributes of the disease.
In her own words …

“We should all be aids activists, because there is a thin line between being positive and being negative. You never know what may happen in the future.”

Fast Facts:

• Zinhle grew up in Umlazi township.
• She is one of the lead vocalists in the Sinikithemba Choir, an internationally acclaimed HIV-positive vocal ensemble. Its name translates to “we give hope.” The choir originated with patients from a support group at the Sinikithemba Center, a clinic that provided care even before Aids treatment was available.
• Zinhle works as a deputy director for iTeach, an HIV/Aids-focused educational and solution-seeking program.
• Zinhle is the only South African to be named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. She is one of 10 other visionaries from all over the world who have been recognised for their contributions to world knowledge through exploration.

Source: Mathaba.net

Neighbor’s save family from fire

The Sheffield family, who were all asleep when flames started to cut through their home in the Long Point community Tuesday. Nobody was injured but the home will have to be completely rebuilt.

“We were just lucky and thankful that we were able to be in the right position at the right time,” added Mark Dunston.

Football and Autism

Meet Courtland Hale.  At the age of three he was diagnosed with Austism.  He did not let that hold him back from playing football.  Today he is a 6′4″, 270 lb high-school defensive tackle.

Cortland encourages special needs kids to get involved in sports and other activities as therapy.

Starbucks to fuel cars?

Coffee is well known for being able to power the economic engine that is the global workforce.  It might fill the tank of an individual but certainly won’t fill your car.  Beyond compost are there any alternative uses for coffee grounds?

New research at the University of Nevada shows used coffee grounds can be repurposed into biodiesel to power vehicles, trains, and even airplanes.  The waste from Starbucks alone could turn into 3M gallons of fuel and $8M in profits.

One of the main limits to the acceptance of biodiesel as an alternative fuel is its price premium above regular diesel. To bring the price of biodiesel down, the industry uses as much waste material from other industries as possible to make it — such as used fryer oil and animal fats from poultry processing.

Coffee grounds are actually about 15% oil.  The research team said that it concludes that the coffee-ground oil feedstock would cost between $0.45 to $1.84 less than feedstocks such as corn or soy, is more stable than comparable feedstock oils, and the grounds can be further processed into fuel for pellet stoves.

Given that Starbucks (NasdaqGS: SBUX) generates 210 million pounds of spent coffee grounds per year in the US, the researchers calculate that it could amount to almost 3 million gallons of biodiesel and 89,000 tons of fuel pellets.   Should gas prices reverse direction and move back over $4 per gallon then the researchers estimate as much as $8M in profits from Starbuck’s waste alone.

One of the main drivers for adoption of biodiesel is energy security. This means that a nation’s dependence on oil is reduced, and substituted with use of locally available sources, such as coal, gas, or renewable sources.

Biodiesel production capacity is growing rapidly, with an average annual growth rate from 2002-2006 of over 40%. For the year 2006, the latest for which actual production figures could be obtained, total world biodiesel production was about 5-6 million tons (over 80% of this production comes from Europe).

Sources: Gas 2.0, Wikipedia, Ecogeeek, Biofuels Digest

Secret Santas spread cheer in three states

At a suburban Goodwill store on Friday, Theresa Settles selected a large, black comforter to warm her family until she can raise the money to turn the gas heat back on. A petite woman approached, her face obscured by dark sunglasses and a wrapped winter scarf, and handed Settles two $100 bills stamped with the words “secret Santa.” “The only condition,” she said, “is that you do something nice for someone. Pass it on.”

“I will,” Settles said, the only words she could get out of her mouth.

The secret Santa was a protege of Kansas City’s undercover gift giver, Larry Stewart, who died of cancer nearly two years ago. Stewart roamed city streets each December doling out $100 bills to anyone who looked like they might need a lift.

Before his death in January 2007, Stewart told a friend how much he would miss his 26 years of anonymous streetside giving, during which he gave away about $1.3 million. Stewart, from the city suburb of Lee’s Summit, made millions in cable television and long-distance telephone service.

The friend promised Stewart he would be a secret Santa the next year. “He squeezed my hand and that was it,” said the Kansas City Santa, who would say only that he was an area businessman and investor. “I honored a promise.”

Two secret Santas, one from the Kansas City area and the other from the St. Louis area, descended on thrift stores, a health clinic, convenience store and small auto repair shop to dole out $20,000 in $100 bills, hugs and words of encouragement to unsuspecting souls in need.

In this economy, they weren’t hard to find.

Cynthia Brown, 40, was laid off three weeks ago from her food service job. Santa found her at the St. Louis County health clinic and gave her $100, exactly what she had asked to borrow from her mother a night ago to buy food.

“I have three daughters, and I can’t get unemployment yet. I was down in food,” she said.

Leotta Burbank, 50, of West Frankfurt, Ill., was at a thrift store Friday to buy decorations for her sister-in-law’s room at a St. Louis hospice, where she is dying of pancreatic cancer.

When Santa gave her money, Burbank collapsed into his arms and wouldn’t stop hugging him.

Read Full Story - Secret Santas

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