Another great story...

I received another link today from my friend Chris. I have posted the Houston Chronicle article in its entirety, but go to the link below to read the rest of the story and see the pictures that have been posted.... Definitely a tear jerker, but its so nice to see people coming together to battle cancer. All the little things really do help!

http://www.coolrunning.com/forums/Forum2/HTML/014506.shtml

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: Sun 08/05/2007
Section: Star
Page: 1Edition: 2 STAR

A NEIGHBORHOOD COMES TOGETHER / A COMMUNITY RUNNING ON HOPE
By JEANNIE KEVER Staff

STEPHANIE Johnson has the slim body of a long-distance runner, but that's deceptive. She's no athlete.
When she runs, it's often with her 7-year-old daughter trailing on a scooter. She swims the backstroke so she doesn't have to put her face in the water.
She even rides a Huffy, the ultimate mom-around-the-'hood bike.
But Johnson has inspired her neighbors and, along the way, she's given herself a bit of hope.
Right now, though, she's doing a slow jog on the sidewalks around her house in Spring, daughter Briannah trotting alongside as they talk about the family's new puppy, a 9-week-old chewing machine named Toby.
It hardly seems the stuff from which legacies are made, but that, too, is deceptive.
The Stephanie Johnson Triathlon will involve the entire family: Husband Greg is producing the race, and he'll compete, too, as will Stephanie and their three children: Greyson, 11; Spencer, 9, and Briannah.
They are creating a memory that, in all likelihood, will outlive Stephanie.
"It's been good for us to do something that's bigger than us," Greg Johnson says.
Triathlons have boomed in popularity during the 33 years since the sport began, and the Johnsons' has become something of a neighborhood cause in Gleannloch Farms, a stylish master-planned community off Spring-Cypress Road, designed around baseball fields, parks, swimming pools, a golf course and even an elementary school.
About 70 percent of the people competing in the Aug. 26 race are first-timers.
"You can see people out riding their bikes, and you know that's what they're doing it for," says Connie Santiago, a friend who will do her first triathlon in order to be at Stephanie's side. "People wouldn't be doing this if they didn't know the Johnsons."
But they do know the Johnsons, and they also know the story behind the triathlon.
A jolt of reality
"We were just very normal. Very average," Stephanie Johnson says of the days when it seemed that normality would last forever. "Kids. Work."
They had busy lives in a Dallas suburb - Greg had started his own company with two partners, and Stephanie had launched a business as a personal organizer - but both were careful planners, and things were unfolding just as they intended.
That changed in February 2004, when Stephanie began to have trouble swallowing. Her doctor suspected gastric reflux but ran more tests just to be sure.
Ten days later, the Johnsons had an answer.
Stephanie had stomach cancer, a disease most commonly diagnosed in people older than 65. She was 35.
Within a month, she was recovering from surgery to remove her stomach and part of her esophagus, along with 19 lymph nodes. She had four months of chemotherapy and radiation, treatments so debilitating that she spent most of her time in bed.
By the end of the year, her cancer was in remission and she was once more able to spend time with her husband and children, although she had to give up her business.
The Johnsons lived in Frisco; their earlier plans to move near Greg's business partners in Houston had been put on hold while she was treated at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. But when doctors there said they would refer her to Houston's University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center if the disease recurred - M.D. Anderson enrolls more patients in clinical trials than any other cancer program in the United States - the family headed south.
They arrived in Spring in March 2005, while Johnson's cancer remained in remission.
A routine scan five months later detected spots on her lung, and doctors later confirmed a recurrence, classified an incurable Stage IV cancer.
Johnson has exhausted conventional treatments, and doctors now hope to prolong her life and keep her symptoms from disrupting daily activities, says Jaffer Ajani, professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at M.D. Anderson.
She is enrolled in her fourth clinical trial - one drug seemed to work for about nine months; two others apparently did not - and will find out later this month whether the latest, a drug made by Merck Pharmaceuticals known as MK-2461, has helped.
Ajani says it is "not impossible" that an experimental drug will prolong her life significantly. The odds, however, aren't good. The American Cancer Society says the five-year survival rate for people with Stage IV stomach cancer is just 3 percent.
"I think she's surpassed the odds anyway," Ajani says. "In that way, she has benefited from the previous therapy, but that is not enough."
Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, but the number of diagnosed cases dropped dramatically over the next 70 years. Researchers link the drop to people eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and fewer salted and smoked foods, along with the increased use of antibiotics, which can kill the Helicobacter pylori bacteria suspected as another cause.
Current research focuses on turning the cancer into a chronic illness that can be managed much as diabetes or high blood pressure is, Ajani says.
Through all of these treatments, the Johnsons, who met at Louisiana Tech University and married after graduation in 1990, have been sure of a couple of things.
First, cancer drew them closer as a couple and taught them to be spontaneous. "We try to treasure everything we're doing," says Johnson, who is now 38.
She updated the family scrapbooks and considered making a video in case she doesn't live to see her children grow up.
That wasn't her style, but she didn't want the milestones - a 16th birthday, prom night, graduation - to pass without her. Instead, she has written letters to each child, filled with her memories of their early lives and her hopes and advice for their futures.
The children know cancer can kill, but for now the Johnsons try not to dwell on her prognosis.
"Nobody knows when their time is," she tells her children.
The second thing the Johnsons knew was, they were not jocks.
A cause to rally around
At least, they didn't used to be.
But life in limbo is almost unbearably stressful, and a friend suggested Greg Johnson join him at a triathlon last year just for fun.
He loved it.
Triathlons give weekend athletes a tremendous sense of accomplishment, says Andy Stewart, owner of Finish Line Sports in Sugar Land.
"In the beginning, people see it as almost undoable," he says. Would-be triathletes think of the Ironman - a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride and 26.2-mile run - and not the more-common shorter distances.
"When first-timers come across the finish line, they're generally hooked." Stewart says.
He sponsors the Try Andy's Tri in October, drawing 750 people to Sugar Land, but says the shorter distances of the Stephanie Johnson Triathlon - a 200-yard swim, six-mile bike ride and two-mile run - make it a perfect introduction to the sport.
Most participants will be first-timers, and more than half will be women. That mirrors the surging number of women triathletes of the past decade, something Stewart attributes in part to women-only events such as the Danskin series, which launched in 1990.
"The camaraderie of the women's events takes away the fear factor," he says. "They really encourage each other."
The Johnson triathlon is all about encouragement, drawing people through personal connection and support for the cause.
Greg Johnson says they hope to raise $40,000, to be given to M.D. Anderson for research and as stipends to cover incidental expenses for six families battling cancer.
"I figure if Stephanie can do it, I can do it," says Santiago, a stay-at-home mom whose husband, Jerry, also will participate.
Santiago is no athlete - at one point, she considered trying to swim using only her arms, in order to save her leg strength for the cycling and running portions.
Needless to say, she does not expect to win.
"My goal is to not come in last."
Rebecca McGarr is more ambitious.
She runs regularly and has ridden in the MS 150, although this is her first triathlon.
"I wanted to do something with my husband, so I signed us up," she says. "I didn't even ask him."
McGarr, 33, says her only concern is the swimming.
"That's harder to train for, particularly with all the rain," she says. "But I'm a tall person, so if worst comes to worst, I'm just going to put my feet down and walk."
After all, there's a dinner riding on it: McGarr, who works in human resources for Shell Oil Co., challenged friends who also live in Gleannloch Farms to "a neighborly duel."
She doesn't know the Johnsons, but she thought the triathlon would be a fun way to support a worthy cause.
For Johnson's closest friends, the race is more personal.
"Every time I'm exerting myself, I feel like not only am I helping with cancer research, but my body is getting stronger," says Alice Vance, who met Johnson when their sons became friends. "Watching Stephanie go through her treatments, I knew I needed to do everything I could to keep myself healthy."
Vance's husband, Mark, will volunteer at the race, and her children, Maverick, who is 11, Grayson, 10 and Nicole, 8, will compete.
Vance, 35 and a stay-at-home mom, feels changed by the challenge. More than that, she has seen Johnson change.
"I noticed about nine months ago that she started not having as much hope," Vance says. "And since this triathlon, her head's been higher. She feels stronger. You can tell there's a difference in her spirit."
A means to achieve a goal
Johnson herself is reserved, reluctant to share her most personal secrets with strangers. But she agrees that the training has given her a goal.
Eating is a struggle, and Johnson can consume only small amounts of food at a time. Fearful of burning too many calories, she had tried to avoid aerobic activities.
Now she's running, biking and swimming, determined to enjoy this period of relatively good health while the growths on her lung have not affected her breathing.
Her husband, meanwhile, is working out more than ever, preparing not only for this race but a half-Ironman in October.
"Training is my sanity," he says.
For Stephanie, it may be even more important.
"She sees that this may be the ticket," he says. "It's given her a lot of hope, getting healthier, getting physically stronger."
The triathlon is about hope, as well as making memories.
"If the doctors are right and she's got another year, we're going to cherish this," Greg Johnson says. "And even if she has more time, we're still going to cherish it."
STEPHANIE JOHNSON TRIATHLON
When: 7 a.m. Aug. 26
Where: Gleannloch Farms Competition Pool, 19828 Gleannbury Pointe Drive, Spring
Main sponsor: Tomball Cancer Hospital
Volunteer: Registration for athletes is complete, but volunteers are needed
Proceeds: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for research and individual grants to families fighting cancer
More information: www.signmeup.com/57370
Also check out: www.youngcancerspouses.org, an on-line support group for people whose spouses have been diagnosed with cancer at a young age. Greg Johnson is a board member.