Eye Of The Tiger

All us kids that lived through the 80's know this song, many of us loved it and only know it as the song from Rocky III.  Nothing wrong with that at all.  I personally love it and my dad had the single to it.  Yes the old vinyl 45 (anyone not born in the 70's will be wondering what the hell I am talking about. This song holds a special significance for me as you will find out further down.

Regular readers of my blog will be aware that I am on a crusade of such this year to take part in riding all 6 Conquer Cancer rides in Australia and New Zealand thanks to my crazy group Vision Crusaders.  My reasons for doing this is due to a number of friends and family that are currently battling this horrible shitty disease in a number of different forms.  These people, in their own ways have shown me what the true fighting spirit is and what the will to fight and the determination to not let this disease win can do.  Their positivity and amazing outlook on life has been nothing short of inspirational to me.  It is for this reason that I choose to ride and raise money for awareness and research into a cure for cancer.

This post is not about me asking for donations, but if anyone would like to that can certainly contact me to do so.  I have further $9300 I need to raise for my rides.  This post is to explain a little about why I choose to do this.  

So I sit here in a little bit of a haze trying to find the words to do this justice.  In the last 24 hours this disease has managed to produce emotions at both ends of the scale for me, so it just proves even more for me the need to get this money raised and the rides done and promote these causes as much as I can. There isn't much else I can do for these fighters really.

One of the people I am riding for I have only found out about in the last 6 months.  She is the best friend of a very good friend of mine and I am proud to say she is now a dear friend of mine.  Annette is a true inspiration and please stick with me whilst I share part of her story.  You can also read her blog here. Annette is a survivor in every sense of the word.  9 years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She beat that bastard and was then lucky enough to have triplets through IVF 7 years ago.  Sadly she now has cancer again and this time it doesn't look good.  In order to help prolong the inevitable and spend as much time with her munchkins and wonderful husband Annette has been travelling to China to get treatment for her cancer.  Now I have not done her story justice at all, but I am sure you get the picture.  Well yesterday I was fortunate enough  to meet this amazing lady and her husband.  They came to Melbourne to meet a friend of mine that works in oncology and see if there is anything that can be done here in Australia so Netty can be closer to her family.

The amazing and inspirational Annette

All I can say is that after meeting her, sharing a few tales, tears and laughs, I left there so pumped and inspired.  I knew that from that moment on I was going to raise the $15K I needed to complete these rides and do my bit.  She is such a strong, determined and amazing lady and her children will feed of this and be better for it.  I am constantly amazed at how strong minded people facing the ultimate battle are and how clear their thought processes are.  There is no grey, it is black and white, life and death.

Now with all ups there are the inevitable downs.  So some news that I was to receive later in the day was not the way I wanted to end the day.  One of my other reasons for riding was given some news yesterday about their treatment, which wasn't very positive.  Sadly this means there will be some rather invasive surgery and is devastating news.  I will not go into this as it is not my place to comment, but it has certainly shaken me up a bit.

Needless to say this has further strengthened my resolve to do what I can.  So this brings me back to the song "Eye of the Tiger".  These lyrics are about me standing toe to toe with arsehole that calls himself cancer.  I am Rocky and he is Clubber Lang.  Listen here Clubber.  You can swagger about being the curse of humanity but I am here with my Vision Crusaders and Team Fighting Back to knock your arse down for the count.

Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive
So many times it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival

This is my new anthem for the fight I will take up take up to this horrible beast that impacts far to many of us.