Meanderings In The Midwest

Let’s just say what we’ve all be thinking…2020 was an interesting year! Jason and I started off 2020 announcing our pregnancy to our friends and family, taking a trip to London in February and getting ready for the arrival of Baby M in June. On January 7, 2020 we celebrated the 10 year anniversary of my bone marrow donation! For Owen, it was the 10 year anniversary of his bone marrow transplant to treat JMML (Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia). 10 years, can you believe it?! If you asked me 10 years ago what I would expect to come from my donation it would have been a lot of “I hope…” and “I wish…” Never would I have imagined the relationships I gained and experiences I had. I’m sure Owen and his family had hoped they would finally get to hear the words “cancer free.”

Our 10 year anniversary was a reason to celebrate! Most people might have thrown a party, or remembered the day quietly with family and friends, but I wanted to do something bigger; I wanted to give back. I was so graciously selected to run the 2020 Boston Marathon with Team in Training to support LLS. But, my doctor suggested with Baby M on the way it was best to postpone running a marathon. Baby M joined us in June 2020, and we have been busy growing as a family of three (more to come on that later!)

Here we are in the spring of 2021, and my goal to help make sure other pediatric blood cancer patients have the hope and resources to get better, just as Owen did, has not gone away. And what would be a better way then to get back to raising funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to help find cures and ensure access to treatments for blood cancer patients, all while training to run a dream marathon…the Boston Marathon! That’s right, I’m going to be running the Boston Marathon in October 2021! And just like Owen had his family and a HUGE support system in their town, it going to take more than just me to make up a team and that’s why I’m asking you to help!

Donations to LLS help fund treatments that save lives every day; like immunotherapies that use a person’s own immune system to kill cancer, or the LLS Children’s Initiative, a collaborative approach to change how pediatric blood cancers are treated. In Minnesota alone, just over $9 million was given by the LLS to the University of MN and Mayo Clinic to help support research on all types of blood cancers and $1.7 million was given to MN blood cancer patients in 2018 to help them fight their disease. You may not know it, but every single donation helps save a life with breakthrough therapies or financial assistance.

Patients need these cures and they need your support.

I’d like to ask you to please make a donation in support of my goal with Team In Training to help get us all closer to a world without blood cancers. (You can check out my official TNT page here – https://pages.lls.org/tnt/mn/boston21/lmoffett)

I promise to keep you updated on my training journey as a new mom, even through the middle of the humid Minnesota summer, and I cannot wait to FINALLY celebrate this 10 year anniversary with all of you when I cross the finish line in October 2021.

With love,

Laura