Why I Ride
By Kristin Conforti, Team Andy, works at Cancer Support Community
I can’t imagine how my brother felt when he was diagnosed with bone cancer at age 29. Being told his leg would be amputated, going through 4 years of arduous treatment that made living a life near impossible and faced with his new reality that life would never be the same.
I can’t imagine because I never knew how to ask. I never knew what to say. My brother, my hero had briefly fallen – and I fell apart.
At Cancer Support Community, a beneficiary of Tour de Pier, we teach families how to begin these discussions. How to ask the questions, how to begin the dialogue, how to be truly there in meaningful ways for the cancer patient while taking care of yourself as well.
An amazing team of doctors saved his leg and he made it through treatment with quiet dignity. 15 years later, he is my best friend and still my hero.
I ride for Andy.
