Help Alan raise money

I'll be running the Falmouth Road Race as a kidney cancer survivor on the DetecTogether team.

I was extremely lucky my cancer was discovered before it spread. You don't have to rely on luck! DetecTogether developed a simple and effective strategy called 3 Steps Detect. Visit www.detectogether.org for more information. If I knew about 3 Steps Detect, I would have listened to my body sooner and would now be further along in my recovery.

I lost my running mojo in 2020. While participating in the runDisney Princess Half Marathon weekend in February I became sick. Afterward, I had a slight cough that wouldn't go away completely. I got checked out in March and they said to just give it a few more weeks. The cough seemed to improve some for about a week or two then took a few steps backward.

In the past, I would get one nasty cold each winter and up with bronchitis that would linger on for a month or two. This didn't seem as bad as that, so I thought I was okay.

The cough seemed to be caused by allergies and would come and go throughout the spring and summer.

It was a real struggle to train for the Falmouth 2020 Stay-at-Home edition. What should have been normal easy training runs felt like an all-out effort. I could barely run 2 miles and it was at a significantly slower pace. I blamed it on running with a face covering but in hindsight there was more going on.

In August the coughing fits started getting worse. I followed up with my doctor and after a couple telemed appointments and an in-person office visit there was still no definitive cause of the cough so she sent me for a chest x-ray. Still not definitive, but the chest x-ray found a spot on my lung so I was sent for a CT scan. The CT scan found a large growth in my left kidney. In November I had a radical nephrectomy to remove the kidney, adrenal gland, and tumor a little larger than a baseball. When I woke up from surgery the cough was gone!

Doctors guess the tumor was there growing for at least 2 years, possibly as long as 5-8 years. Not exactly early detection, but caught in time before it was able to spread.

I will be raising critical funds and ask you to support me by making a gift.  My goal is $750, and a donation of any amount will make a difference. Please click on the donate button or send your tax-deductible donation to DetecTogether (53 Otis Street, Westborough, MA 01581) and indicate my name in the memo line on your check.