About Me

Profile

About:

19 years old, I was born in Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas on August 12, 1993. My family lived in Carrollton, TX and then moved to Plano, TX, where I grew up. While there isn't much interesting to say about Plano, I come from a loving home and a nice family that I love very much. I had a fairly blessed childhood.

During elementary school, I enjoyed playing soccer. Unfortunately, however, a cancer diagnosis put an end to that in the third grade. From an early age, it turned out, a cancerous tumor had been growing in my leg. At age 9, it was pressing up against a nerve, which caused me pain during soccer matches, but also caused a very talented doctor to detect it. Fortunately, my doctors were able to use a combination of chemotherapy, radiation, and finally a surgery to remove the tumor from my leg in about a year. Since then, I have been in remission. While I have had many surgeries afterwards up to the present day to deal with complications, I count myself lucky to have had it detected so early, to still have my leg, and to be able to honestly say that I don't often think about myself as a "cancer survivor".

During middle school, I moved on to playing the trumpet, acting, debating, and doing mock trial. During high school, I acted for a while, then threw myself into debate, then discovered my interest in student journalism.

Now, as a rising sophomore, I spend my days working on my majors in International Relations and Journalism, and projects relating to the certificate I am pursuing in Elements of Computing. Additionally, I have enjoyed working for the Daily Texan, and will be interning with Project Vote Smart in the Fall. Of course, the majority of my time outside of school this year will be going to Texas 4000.

Why I Ride

When I joined Texas 4000, I did it for my mom's brother, Rick. A man of few words, I saw him a few times a year, and I got to know him as well as anyone in our family could(not as well as I wished). My mom would always joke that he was born in the wrong century. Although Rick grew up like my mom in suburban Plano, surrounded by concrete and cars, he studied in college so he could build his own ranch. With land gifted to him by my grandfather, he started a successful cattle business, not an easy feat in Texas, where large cattle companies tend to dominate the market.

Rick received a cancer diagnosis at the age of 54. Three years later, he passed away, after a trying battle with his disease. While I was upset that my uncle had passed, what upset me more was that so quickly, my mom had lost her brother. Even more importantly, his two sons, who wear ten-gallon hats and cowboy boots like their father, and are still in elementary school, lost a role model. I was angry that cancer had caused so many people to lose control over their own lives.

Of course, Rick isn't the only member of my family to have received a cancer diagnosis. Aside from myself, my maternal grandfather had a short bout with skin cancer. Additionally, my paternal grandmother, who is one of the sweetest women I know, fought and won her own battle against breast cancer.

Again, in my own life, in Rick's life, and in the lives of my grandmother and grandfather, I find myself most angry that cancer took away control. I hate the disease for the disruption it causes in the lives of the ones I love.

While Texas 4000 is a relatively small nonprofit, I see my membership in this organization as an opportunity to, in a small way, fight back. Like all the other riders on this team, I ride for the hope that there will be a future where a cancer diagnosis is taken far less seriously. I ride for the knowledge of cancer that the funds we raise helps others obtain, and that we seek to spread in our own mission. I ride for charity, the backbone of any nonprofit. I ride to take back control from this disease.