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Each year bicyclists from around the United States travel through Pittsburg and Girard on cross-country trips. They typically come in alone or in groups of five to 10.
But on Sunday evening, 27 bikers from the group 4K For Cancer, a Baltimore-based organization based out of Johns Hopkins University, stopped in Girard for the night before heading west to Fall River and Wichita on their way to San Francisco. The group’s size and route direction makes them unique — most riders start from the West Coast in part to take advantage of tailwinds. But it is unique in another way: two of its members, Tom Backof, 26, and Nick Pucci, 24, are recent cancer survivors.
Backof was diagnosed last year with a 4.5-lb. tumor that affected one of his lymph nodes and a lung. It was a collection of smaller ailments occurring at the same time, including shortness of breath, that led him to seek treatment.
“If it was any one of those by themselves I wouldn’t have gone,” Backof said.
Doctors initially thought the massive blob on the X-ray chart was an infection, Backof said. But when an MRI scan proved it was some sort of growth mass that had essentially collapsed his lung, Backof was given the option of waiting for the results of a biopsy or proceeding with removal surgery.
“I said ‘Let’s get it out of there,’” Backof said. That was a year ago.
About a month before he departed with the group in May, Backof had surgery to repair his diaphragm. That didn’t leave much time to prepare. The rest of the riders had had at least a few weeks to attempt to get into shape. But Backof wasn’t going to be deterred.
“My bike weighs about 30 pounds, and I lifted it a week before I was supposed to,” he chuckled. “I broke the rules a bit.”
Backof is in the clear for now, but still returns every six to eight months for screenings.
“After five years, I might be able to stop,” he said.
Pucci’s story is a bit less dramatic, but no less significant. Pucci, who works in finance in New York, was traveling in Italy with his family after he graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2009. In the midst of a cold, he noticed the lymph nodes in his neck had swollen to abnormal proportions. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he returned in April of 2009 and promptly started six months of chemotherapy.
Each year bicyclists from around the United States travel through Pittsburg and Girard on cross-country trips. They typically come in alone or in groups of five to 10.
But on Sunday evening, 27 bikers from the group 4K For Cancer, a Baltimore-based organization based out of Johns Hopkins University, stopped in Girard for the night before heading west to Fall River and Wichita on their way to San Francisco. The group’s size and route direction makes them unique — most riders start from the West Coast in part to take advantage of tailwinds. But it is unique in another way: two of its members, Tom Backof, 26, and Nick Pucci, 24, are recent cancer survivors.
Backof was diagnosed last year with a 4.5-lb. tumor that affected one of his lymph nodes and a lung. It was a collection of smaller ailments occurring at the same time, including shortness of breath, that led him to seek treatment.
“If it was any one of those by themselves I wouldn’t have gone,” Backof said.
Doctors initially thought the massive blob on the X-ray chart was an infection, Backof said. But when an MRI scan proved it was some sort of growth mass that had essentially collapsed his lung, Backof was given the option of waiting for the results of a biopsy or proceeding with removal surgery.
“I said ‘Let’s get it out of there,’” Backof said. That was a year ago.
About a month before he departed with the group in May, Backof had surgery to repair his diaphragm. That didn’t leave much time to prepare. The rest of the riders had had at least a few weeks to attempt to get into shape. But Backof wasn’t going to be deterred.
“My bike weighs about 30 pounds, and I lifted it a week before I was supposed to,” he chuckled. “I broke the rules a bit.”
Backof is in the clear for now, but still returns every six to eight months for screenings.
“After five years, I might be able to stop,” he said.
Pucci’s story is a bit less dramatic, but no less significant. Pucci, who works in finance in New York, was traveling in Italy with his family after he graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2009. In the midst of a cold, he noticed the lymph nodes in his neck had swollen to abnormal proportions. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when he returned in April of 2009 and promptly started six months of chemotherapy.
“We caught it early," the Philadelphia native said. “It was pretty ‘by the book.’”
Pucci now returns every three to five months for checkups.
The two don’t see themselves as any different than the rest of the riders, though. They still bike the average of between 80 and 90 miles a day, and go through the same pain. And each of the riders at least knows someone who has been affected directly by cancer.
Often the group relies on the kindness of strangers for their bedding and food. Most aren’t hobby cyclists, so the first few weeks through the Appalachian and Ozark Mountains were tough, said rider Emily Efronson.
“We only get five to six hours of sleep each night,” Efronson said. “We’ve all gained the ability to sleep just about anywhere.”
And for a bunch of kids who weren’t serious riders, the physically-exhausting work can be mentally taxing as well, said Nick Pantaleo, one of the leaders for the first leg of the ride.
“But you just put your head down and go,” Pantaleo said. “We really lean on each other for support. I know I couldn’t do this by myself.”
It’s that group support that most impresses Backof.
“The best part of this is getting to ride with all these cool people and living with them for 70 days,” Backof said. “And for the people we meet along the way, it’s a chance to put a face to the fight.”
Pucci agreed.
“It’s been pretty inspirational to see everyone push through and progress,” he said.
