My Hubby

Racing to Save Lives

During the Christmas season in 2005 my husband Gay Joaquin
went through surgery to replace his ACL in his right knee. He tore it playing basketball. Six months later, my husband trained to run in his first Marine Corp marathon in Washington, DC! He trained as a member of the
National Capital Area’s Team In Training (TNT) program on behalf of The
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It was one of the most rewarding experiences he felt. This will be his THIRD marathon.

First hand, TNT exists to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma,
Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma. It also works to improve the quality of life of
patients and their families. There are currently more than 747,000 Americans
living with blood cancer and every ten minutes a life is claimed by blood
cancer. Leukemia is one of the leading causes of death in children between the
ages of 1 and 15. The good news is that the survival rate has risen from 4% in
1960 to 81% in the last decade. This is in part due to the money that The
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has raised to aid researchers in their fight to
find cures for these diseases.

TNT is The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s largest fundraising
program. Each
participant in the program pledges to raise a certain amount of money during
the 4 to 5 months they train for their event. My husband has set a personal
goal to raise at least $5,000 for the Marine Corps Marathon. That is a lot of money, and I hope he
can do it.

Now to get to the part why my husband is doing this. As I stated before, while playing
basketball, he partially tore the ACL in his right knee. In December (2005) Dr. David Novak of
Commonwealth Orthopedics of Fairfax, Virginia did a fantastic job surgically
replacing his ACL. After the surgery, he went through four months of physical
therapy with the most incredible physical therapists at Commonwealth. When his therapy ended in April (2006) he was
in so much better shape, he could walk easily without a limp. Most of his strength had returned. My
husband would tell me after he got home from his therapy that he even started jumping
and doing lateral movement drills. It was at that time when he talked about
running again. Earlier, he would
jog to keep himself in shape. This was very important to him, not just because he
wanted to play basketball again, but because he wanted to keep up with our
daughter, Lynne. He realized that he couldn’t do this alone, not
with all of the priorities and demands on his life. Fortunately, his physical
therapist told him about Team IN Training.

“Not only will it be fulfilling to raise money for TNT but I am
dedicating my training to my daughter in the hope that I will become a
healthier and more physically fit father, someone who is planning to be there
for her in the long run. I also dedicate my training to my friend, Lola Usack,
who died of a lymphoma in 2005. Lola was there for my wife, Alisa, and me at
the hospital throughout the delivery of our daughter. Lola was also one of the
kindest, gentlest, and wisest people I have ever known.”

My hubby hasn’t reached his goal of $5000 because of one thing. He’s been acting as mentor for several other runners, some of them running their first marathon. This s his second year to do this. Last year his group honored him with a special gift certificate to Potomic Running Store.

If you would like help him reach his goal, you can go to his Team In Training Web Site, and donate there. The link is below.

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I must apologize. I gave everyone the wrong link.  My hubby did not update my web site, so here is the new link.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/corps09/gjoaquin3z