I am a teacher. I am a writer. I am producer. I am a cyclist. I am a member of the National Capital TNT Chapter. I’m cycling 100 miles on October 5, 2013 with my team in Salisbury, Maryland to raise money for blood cancer research and support the LLS (Leukemia & Lymphoma Society).

My “Team in Training” (TNT) Team has raised over $124,000 to help stop Leukemia & Lymphoma. I have raised $1,025.00 to date. I ride twice a week to train for the Century ride in October,

My honored teammate is Dayle Zukor. She is the wife of a close friend in Los Angeles, California. At 63 years old, Dayle was diagnosed with Hairy Cell Leukemia a form of CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia). Dayle is a grandmother of six, mother of two sons, wife, and successful interior designer. She was in a convent for one year studying to be a nun so she could “do for others & help the world become a better place.” Later in her life, she converted to Judaism.

Even with her CLL, with monthly IVIG immunotherapy treatments, and periodic hydrations, Dayle volunteers one day a week at the hospital. Her CLL leukemia was complicated by a lung disease called bronchiectasis which was diagnosed eight years earlier, so her treatment in August 2010 for Hairy Cell Leukemia became not only complicated, but grueling. For eight days, she had chemotherapy treatments that wiped out all of cancer cells along with the healthy immune, disease-fighting cells in her body.

April 16, 2012, Dayle addressed the Tower Cancer Foundation. This is an excerpt from her speech: “Let me say what cancer cannot be allowed to take from us: it cannot be permitted to cripple our ability to love or invade our souls, it must never shatter our hopes or dreams, it cannot be allowed to destroy our peace and cannot silence our courage and our spirit.”

Dayle Zukor is a true inspiration. Courageous, wise, loving and kind, she says, “I do not deserve to live in place of a child, a younger person, or a parent with younger children. I have lived a full blessed life.”