Christopher Rawson's Ride
Why I Ride ...
To my dearest friends, family members and supporters.
A couple of weeks after Christmas of 2005 in January mom asked my sister Katelynn and I to talk with her because she was sick again. She had had cancer once again. She told us the severity of her cancer and that the prognosis was grim. She told us that her doctors had told her she had a very short time, maybe a few months, maybe 6 and at the very best a year. Mom had already been fighting the awful disease on and off for 13 years. They told her when she first got cancer and went through her first course of treatment that she would only live five years afterwards. She tried to seem optimistic. But for some reason, I knew that this time it would not be long. I could see how tired she was. She had not slept a full night sleep in years. Her skin color was light grey and her hands were cold and shriveled. Mom had not been eating very much at all. She could not sit too long or stand or lay down for long periods of time. There seemed to be no comfortable position for her. She tired quickly. Mom was still smiling … but I could see her holding the tears back behind her blue eyes. She knew, too. She just didn't want my sister to worry about her; she didn't want anyone to worry about her. She did not want to burden anyone as usual.
It was almost 5 months from the day we spoke ... on June 16th 2006 around 6:00am mom suffered 2 strokes as she lie in bed. Minutes after, she had loss the use of her right arm. Her vision was greatly affected leaving her with tunnel vision. Her speech was slurred. But she managed to get up and Kate helped her down the stairs and called 911. Mom was determined to get downstairs to make it easier on the paramedics. She was taken by ambulance to BayState Medical Center. There, she underwent a series of tests to determine the severity of her condition. She began to have seizures. Mom was given an IV to prevent them. She resisted the installation of the IV, she always hated having them and she had way too many over the years. Saturday evening she began to sleep and she continued to sleep. She slept until Monday. Mom hadn't slept that well in years. She had been given drugs to make her very comfortable and to keep her pain free. By noon on Monday she began very deep and labored breathing. A very gracious nurse took us aside, talked with us and told us that her body was shutting down and it would not be much longer. Around 3:00pm Monday afternoon June 19th mom died. She was just 51 years old.
On Thursday, June 22nd at 11:00am Kate and I went to the Springfield Crematorium, which is inside a 200 plus year old stone chapel. Kate wore a bright yellow dress and as we entered into the chapel she held my hand. They brought mom out inside a white cardboard box with wooded batten boards atop a stainless steel gurney. We stood by her for a little while, until it was time for her to go into the crematorium. Kate and I went for a walk around the cemetery. It all seemed a little too surreal. I never really thought that at the age of 32 that I would be holding my sister's hand at our mom's cremation on the second day of summer.
Mom underwent many, many hours of radiation treatment to a point where she could not receive anymore. She had Lymphedema in her right leg, a condition when the fluid within soft tissue does not drain naturally and causes severe swelling. She had too many surgeries to remove cancerous tumors and some organs that were attached. When you add up the entire time mom spent in the hospital for treatments, surgery, doctor visits and recovery days it was well over 2 years.
Mom was one of the strongest and bravest people I have ever known. And I miss her a lot. I really don't think that I ever fully knew the gravity that she had on my life until months after her death when I picked up the phone to call her to tell her about something that happened to me.
This August, to honor my mom, I'm riding my bicycle another 200 miles in the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge to raise money for the Jimmy Fund and Dana Farber Cancer Institute. And I need your support because no one should have to watch their love ones suffer or die from cancer.
Your support means a lot to me,
Christopher Rawson
Christopher's PMC Total
$0
Goal
$4,200
My Progress
My Online Supporters
| I have chosen to keep all of my donors' information confidential; therefore it is not displayed on my PMC public donor list. |
My Rides
| 2009 | $4,512 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2008 | $4,100 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2007 | $3,955 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2005 | $4,285 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2004 | $3,380 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2003 | $6,335 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2002 | $2,054 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2001 | $2,250 | Sturbridge to Provincetown Inn (2-Day) |
| 2000 | $0 | Sturbridge to Bourne (1-Day, Sat) |
