| 2009 Frozen Hog Raffle - About Ryan Winters |
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Steve Winters (yellow sleaves, red hat, standing by the line
of bikers) has been a core
Frozen Hog volunteer since the beginning. He also puts in many hours as a
trailwork volunteer in American Fork Canyon. Many of you know Steve as
tallsteve on our forum. Steve's son Ryan is in a critical battle with
advanced Hodgkins lymphoma. |
| Ryan Winters was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma in
September 2007. Chemotherapy failed to get a permanent remission. Ryan
will undergo a stem-cell bone marrow transplant in January and will be in
the hospital recovering during this year's Frozen Hog race. |
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Ryan in better times. |
With central IV line, December 30. |
Our Frozen Hog raffle this year will benefit the Cancer
Clinic at American Fork Hospital, where Ryan has received treatment. Every
cent of every raffle ticket goes to treat local cancer patients. The
donation will be made in Ryan's name.
You can buy as many raffle tickets as you like at $5 each. The on-line registration page lets you buy up to five raffle
tickets. You can score additional raffle tickets by calling
UtahMountainBiking at 801-653-2689 (hours erratic) or visiting the shop at
169 W Main in Lehi. Or bring your wallet on race-day morning.
If you want to help more, our on-line registration page has a spot where
you can donate additional money. Non-racers -- or racers who want extra
chances to win -- can buy raffle tickets on-line at this link: [Extra
raffle tickets] |
| We'll give away
a few thousand bucks worth of stuff, including a bike (dual suspension,
disc brakes), ski lift passes, lodging near Gooseberry, and several motel stays
in Moab.
So here's the bike, a K2 Attack MSRP $500. Great starter bike for a
family member; nice "decoy" to put in front of your expensive
racing hardtail in the garage; or some quick cash when sold to a needy
neighbor. |
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Here's "Tallsteve" giving Ryan a shot to stimulate
production of stem cells for the upcoming "High Dose Chemotherapy
with Stem Cell Rescue". Basically, the procedure is to suck out and
freeze some bone marrow stem cells, then blast the lymphoma with huge
amounts of toxic chemicals. The bone marrow gets destroyed in the process.
So the frozen stem cells are transfused to re-establish the bone marrow so
the patient can again make blood and immune cells. Yeah, cancer sucks.
You can follow Ryan's progress on his blog
[www.ablogforryan.blogspot.com] |
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