Every once in a while, someone or something comes across your path in life that makes you slow down, pause, think and reflect that maybe, just maybe, your life isn’t really that bad.
Today, for me, its a little tough guy named Sammy Hutchison – honorary team captain for the Swamis TeamSam.com cycling team competing in the 24 hour Corporate Challenge of the Race Across America (RAAM) from Oceanside, California to Flagstaff, Arizona.
Sammy is more than just your exuberant red-headed 6 year old kid. Technically, as I have been informed, his label is:
“…a fun-loving, soccer-playing, heelie-wearing, taco-eating, video game- playing, bike-riding, Magic Treehouse book-reading, bionicle-building, transformer-transforming, brother-tormenting, brother-loving, baby brother-kissing, speed-loving six year-old.
So what makes Sammy honorary captain of his own cycling team; what quality does he possess to get adults too caught up in their own lives to stop and ponder that maybe there really is more to life that the proverbial non-stop hamster wheel?
On January 19, 2005, Sam was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma with a tumor in his abdomen, three bone lesions, and 95% packed bone marrow. He’s has gone through multiple rounds on chemotherapy, a six hour surgery and a stem cell transplant and a relapse in 2006. Despite all that, Sammy looks at life with the wonderful innocence of a six-year old. Legoland – cool. Cycling – cool. Hospitals and monthly blood draws – not so cool, but he faces it with a determination well beyond his years.
I’ve been peripherally involved with TeamSam.com this year and only had the chance to meet Sammy this morning – standing tall and proud in his TeamSam.com cycling jersey, arms raised in victory in front of his cycling team (at least for a moment, then as most 6 year olds – something else caught his attention, and with his smiling-freckled face and red hair, he was darting off on another 6 year old adventure…
If you want to find out more about Sammy and his cycling team, check out TeamSam.com. Inspired? Then help out and donate to the Penolope and Sam Fund for finding a cure for Neuroblastoma.
Follow the Race Across America 24-hour Corporate Challenge at www.raceacrossamerica.org
