I saw a tweet the other day that featured the Ashland University women’s soccer team. The women had laced up their soccer cleats with gold shoelaces as part of the “Go 4 the Goal” program to increase awareness of childhood cancer. 

I was excited by the tweet because just a few days earlier, a nurse at Akron Children’s Hospital had given me my own set of gold shoelaces, laces that have already found a home in my running shoes. 

I had stopped at the hospital after doing a short interview on WAKR in Akron as part of promotions for the Akron Marathon, which I am running. I wanted to tell some of the nurses who took care of me when I had leukemia as a 15-year-old that, not only was I running my first ever marathon, but I that I had specifically chosen a race that would allow me to see Akron Children’s Hospital in my final mile, as I neared the finish line.   

That’s pretty much what I was talking about with Ray Horner, a talk show host at WAKR. It seems the marathon people think that’s a great story. 

Those gold shoelaces mean a lot to me. I see them and think about the days I spent at Akron Children’s Hospital in 1991. Scared. At times close to death. Unable to even walk down the hallway to physical therapy. 

And then I think about what I’m about to do. Run 26.2 miles, and finish less than a quarter-mile from those hallways that I couldn’t walk 23 years ago. 

I also look at those shoelaces and think about all the kids I knew at Akron Children’s who weren’t as lucky as me. Kids who had the exact same disease and sometimes the same doctor, and yet they died while I survived. Kids like Melissa and Todd and Little John and Shelby and Laura Jo and Tim and Terri, who never got a chance to grow up, who never got the chance to find out later in life that they loved the act of running. 

Those kids are the primary reason I’m running this marathon at all, because I’m doing the race for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. I’ve raised more than $1,200 for the society, which then uses donations to fund research into childhood cancer treatments. Even 23 years ago, I benefited from treatments whose research had been funded by the LLS. 

Every penny I raise increases the odds of future kids who are diagnosed with cancer. When I found out I had leukemia in on Jan. 2, 1991, I had a 50 percent chance of living. My life had been reduced to a coin flip. Now that survival rate is nearing 90 percent. 

That’s great, but it’s not good enough. And even when we reach 100 percent, there is still work to do, primarily in mitigating the horrendous side effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy on childhood cancer patients.

That’s why I’m running, and that’s why I’ve got gold shoelaces in my shoes, and that’s why I was so happy to see the women’s soccer team wearing those laces. Because every penny and every bit of publicity counts. 

Matt Tullis is an associate professor of journalism in the department of journalism and digital media. He is also the advisor to The Collegian.

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