The Childhood Cancer Blog

Team Lemon

Inspiration for the Endurance (Running for Kids with Cancer)

When I was a kid, my siblings and I were all healthy, borderline indestructible at times. We played rough, but I can’t ever remember going to the hospital for stitches or casts. My mother didn’t seem to fret or worry, she didn’t call the doctor incessantly or fuss over a stomachache. When I relive these stories with my mom, she remembers it slightly differently, because she did worry, she still worries, and she will always worry about her children (and now grandchildren). It was just when it came to the physical health stuff, we didn’t need much protection, we were lucky that way. I thought a lot about that as trudged along the backroads of Pennsylvania last June. I was trying to cross my 18th state on foot, as part of my #RunFree50 challenge, raising money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and support their mission of fighting childhood cancers and supporting those families in the battle. I was struggling to keep any pace resembling running and wondering if I should just call the whole thing off – I had a good excuse after all, I had just found out that I was pregnant the week prior. 

Pulling Double Duty: The Cancer Researcher Running for Cures

Aspiring physician-scientist Peter Tonzi always wanted to make a difference for kids fighting pediatric cancer.  Peter, who is a MD/PhD candidate at the NYU School of Medicine, worked in Dr. Katherine Janeway’s lab for two years supporting pediatric sarcoma research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. That experience led Peter to Team Lemon, the national charity racing team organized by Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF).