Jimmy Fund

As I write this, the Red Sox are down 2 games to none in their series agains the Yankees, and are poised for the greatest comeback in the history of the rivalry. I'm not the biggest Sox fan, I only follow the playoffs, but this year I'm especially interested because of their tie to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

In 1948 Dr. Sidney Farber brought a bunch of players from the Boston Braves to the Children's Hospital to meet a young child with Leukemia named Carl Einar Gustafson. They did a radio broadcast, found a new name for Carl, and the Jimmy Fund was born. "Jimmy" beat the odds and lived to the age of 65, as detailed in this Boston Globe article. The Braves moved to Atlanta and Ted Williams of the Red Sox stepped in to carry the fundraising flag. Over the years they raised a lot of money, and built the hospital where I'm receiving my treatments.



On the current team, my favorite player is knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. He won two games in the Yankees series last year and as my friend Geoff pointed out, he spends all his free time fundraising and visiting kids in the hospital. We think he's cool.

For myself, I'm doing alright. I'm between my first and second chemo cycle, which is the time you're given to recover from what they've done to you. One of the drugs, Bleomycin, gives me a fever and knocks me out for a couple days. It's all manageable, but not much fun. Overall, I'm doing well for what's going on and the drugs are saving my life.