The ‘Why’ / The Campaign

Sheila and I always trusted in the fact that mankind and science always succeeded in finding a cure or a way to halt otherwise lethal illnesses and diseases, like for example measles, polio, diabetes, HIV or most recently Covid. Our mantra that kept us going was to “hang in there, and there will soon be some new therapy or medication that will buy us some more time”. And truth to be told, in the many years during which Sheila courageously fought her cancer, over time she was offered various new products and strategies which hadn’t been available at the time of her diagnosis.

So the good news is that there are many indications to cancer one day being an illness that we might be able to live with or even to cure. We’re however not there just yet, cancer is still the second biggest killer in the world after cardiovascular diseases, and it will still take huge efforts and much more funding to get there. When a child has cancer, its childhood ends abruptly.

When a child dies of cancer, it has been denied the opportunity to live a life and it is a crippling disaster especially for the parents having lost their child. When an adult, especially in their prime, a parent, a partner, a friend and a member of the community dies of cancer, they leave a painful void behind nobody can fill and it is a disaster especially for children having lost their parent. When a person dies before their time, their partner is mostly left behind to spend their rest of life lonely and without their spouse, friend, love and soul mate.

Towards the end Sheila and I shared the feeling of having been betrayed of growing old together. With the purpose of hopefully making a meaningful contribution towards bringing an end to death by cancer in favor of death by old age, I am embarking on a journey across the green island of Ireland on a motorbike with the intent to show and highlight rarely seen or known places and scenery off the beaten tracks and while doing so, raising funds for the Irish Cancer Society (80%) and Milford Hospice (20%).