2 years ago I met the Piccoli family after almost losing my daughter the previous year to a lung infection. We were fortunate in that she was saved by the wonderful staff at Sick Kids, without them or their facility we aren’t sure she would be with us today. When I saw their situation, I reached out to the family knowing I wanted to give back to the hospital that had giving me so much in a short period of time.

The following holiday season my family was shaken to its very core; my son, my hockey player, my video game buddy and all around mini-me was diagnosed with Acute lymphocytic leukemia (A.L.L). He was thrust from his normal childhood into a battle for his life, a battle that no child should have endure.

I watched my son grow weak, and quiet. Walking was a chore for him, and I watched him gain and lose weight depending on the drugs he had to take. I had to listen to my child scream through the tears and pain “I don’t want to hurt anymore” as he was recovering from Biopsy Surgery on his liver due to a fungus infection and growth on his kidney. Those words still pierce me as I just heard them yesterday. No child should have to say those words, and yet there he was – gritting his teeth and fighting.

There is nothing that I would not have done to sit in my child’s shoes, to take away his pain and to make him better. But that wasn’t possible, it was his fight and all I could do was support him and be there with him as he battled with the courage that only a child faced with what seemed like insurmountable odds could muster.

My Jojo was not the only one, the 8th floor of Sick Kids is full of little ones like my son, little ones who back down from nothing in the face of the greatest challenge of their very young lives.  They say that superheroes are a myth, that they are fiction and simply don’t exist. I can tell you that the lack of their existence is an unfounded statement, it is a fiction all in its own. Superhero’s lie in the hearts of every child on the eighth floor of Sick Kids.

Last year the Piccoli family - who’s kindness knows no bounds - took a button of my son on the journey from Toronto to Montreal.  Every rider gets a button of child who has earned their wings far too soon or is currently fighting the good fight, and they knew I needed to be home for Joey and could not make the trip so they took him for me. 

This year it’s my turn to take that button of Joey, my turn to show my son and every superhero on the 8th floor that if they can fight, be strong and be so very brave – that we can too.  We all can. Riding 600 kilometers might seem like a feat of incredible proportion, however I have an entire summer to train and prep my body to ride. Our children get thrust into a far greater feat and do so on a moment’s notice.

No donation is too small - Children’s Cancer is the leading non-accidental cause of death in children. Please help me and my 401 Family do all we can to put an end to this terrible disease once and for all.

JOJO THIS ONES FOR YOU !