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Father crosses country to help daughter
After almost a year of sitting in hospitals and doctors offices with 2-year-old daughter Taylor as she fights cancer, Mike Love is taking some time away from his family to help raise funds and awareness of neuroblastoma, the childhood cancer Taylor is battling.On Sept. 10, Mike and a handful of other fathers of children with neuroblastoma will bike 3,700 miles from California to Washington, D.C., on a journey called "The Loneliest Road Campaign."
Their mission is to get the word out to everyone they come across about a new treatment that can help fight the children's disease.
Mike and his family first came to know of neuroblastoma when they took Taylor to the pediatrician in December after noticing a bruise near one eye and the other eye “not looking right.” Within days Taylor was diagnosed with Stage IV neuroblastoma, a stage that is considered high-risk, calls for numerous treatments including chemotherapy, blood transfusions and other innovative treatments. The cancer has a 20-percent survival rate.
Taylor has already had seven rounds of chemotherapy and is now undergoing antibody treatments at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where Mike and his wife Aimee have met other families who are fighting the disease with their sons and daughters.
In mid-July, Mike and Aimee were told about a new antibody treatment, 3F8, that could help children fight neuorblastoma. Currently there is no human form of the antibody and no funding in place to get it ready for clinical trials.
“It is in our own hands to save our kids,” Mike said.
He and some other fathers met and discussed their options. That night the Loneliest Road Campaign came alive.
Following a route that will take the fathers through major cities across the United States, the bikers will collectively ride all day, every day making sure to ride along part of Highway 50, dubbed the "loneliest road in the United States."
“Highway 50 is fitting for this particular disease,” said Aimee Love, Taylor's mom. “Unless you see or experience it, you don't know what theses kids are up against.”
The bikers will reunite with their families Sept. 29 in Washington, D.C.
Contact the reporter at lwolstenholme@timespapers.com
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