Hello everyone!

I will be riding 30 miles for cancer cures during the 2024 Ride for Roswell! As one of the nation's largest cycling events, the Ride is a powerful reminder that each of us can make a difference. Funds raised go directly to cutting-edge cancer research and quality of life programs that help patients at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and around the world. Each donation brings us one step closer to ending cancer.

This year I am riding in memory of my dear friend's dad. This is written by her mom.

Chuck's journey by Cindy Barrett.

It's a really difficult task to sum up a year's worth of bravery heartbreak pain and suffering and yet so much love and understanding. Chuck's journey with cancer only lasted less than a year. However it started with a heart attack 7 years ago that led him through an 8-month journey to receive a new heart. He spent 8 months in the hospital waiting for the right heart to show up and those were tough months but he definitely made the most of them. After he received the heart and had it. After recuperation he felt better than he felt in years. We did so many things during that 6-year period we traveled in a motorhome , he did things with the grandkids he collected things he enjoyed life. We had been told that the anti rejection meds that he was on could lead to him being susceptible to almost anything but especially skin cancer. So he went and had annual checkups he had several spots over those years that they removed. It never seemed like a really big deal I don't think we took that quite serious enough. Then last January he felt a lump under his arm and it grew really fast it took us quite a while to diagnose it he went from one doctor to another to this test and that test and finally they decided that it was a cancerous tumor in his lymph node system. They removed it and we were hoping that that would be all there was to it. But it grew right back in about 2 months that led to a more aggressive surgery where they removed a lot of lymph nodes and a lot of mass out from under his arm. That was the first time we had heard the words metastatic squamous cell carcinoma. So at that point we needed to find an oncologist that could handle the whole comprehensive issue that let us to Roswell. Prior to that we were going to Strong memorial in Rochester because that's where he had had the heart transplant and they knew him and how to treat him. But this wasn't the same once we got to Roswell we were assigned a wonderful man who really helped us through with the next 6 months or so we're going to be. Chuck lost the use of his left arm he had lymphedema from the removal of all those lymph nodes so that was just a result of the surgeries. They tried to battle it with radiation. But that only helped with one spot at a time and at this point the cancer was popping up all over they needed something more comprehensive and chemo was to be our last option because of the fact he was immunosuppressed it was very limited what options they could give us. We were told that had not been for the transplant and the immunosuppressant drugs squamous cell is relatively easy to manage but nothing about Chuck's case was easy. So starting in August he went once a week for a treatment that was meant to keep the cancer at bay and it did for a couple of months. Once we saw new spots popping up we were told that it was time to switch paths and go to the chemo. Chuck was willing to do whatever he could to keep it at bay cuz he wasn't ready his goal was to get to Christmas which he did. And memories were made. On Christmas Day Chuck came down with the flu The flu morphed into a A typical pneumonia. It took a couple of weeks before those symptoms were gone before we could try to get back into chemo. By the time we got back to Roswell it was too late he was too weak and it's spread too far and we came home with the realization that we were very quickly approaching the end. Thanks to my sister-in-law and the wonderful people from hospice we were able to keep him home for those last couple of weeks he had a chance to say goodbye to most everyone and on January 31st we had to say our final goodbyes. His bravery no matter how difficult the struggle was amazing he handled it all with such dignity and with a sense of humor anything he could do to try to help us through it.

Learn more about where the funds go here.

Thank you for your support! It means the world to me!