In honor of our friend, Francisco Valencia, Financial Analyst for AIL Brands, APOGEE will be participating in the Team in Training event with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Team In Training (TNT), has grown to be the world’s largest and most successful endurance sports charity training program. The money raised by TNT participants has funded research & advanced treatments for blood cancers. Whether you are a novice or a seasoned athlete, TNT’s team-focused philosophy will help get you across the finish line at the event of your choice.
1. My name is Francisco Valencia Jr.
I was born in Cali Colombian on
March 7, 1986 and I am a cancer
survivor. I can’t believe I just
wrote that. It is still sometimes
difficult to accept what happened in 2011.
Just yesterday my father was telling how sad he was
during my fight with cancer and how it will break his heart
seeing me laying in bed, almost as if I was dying slowly.
Around June of 2011 I was weighing in 158L this is 47LB
less than my normal weight of 205LB. I had Cancer. I
couldn’t believe it I couldn’t understand why this was
happening. Did I do something wrong? Did I eat the
wrong things? Did the Cancer spread?
Why was this happening to me? My
doctors couldn’t tell me my family was
just as confused as I was. I never
felt so lost in my life and confuse
of where I was or if I was going to
be here in December. I didn’t have the
strength to ask my parents if they were ok. All I could
do was apologize to them for the pain I had brought to
my family. There was such a feeling of guilt, sad, lost
and anger. All I can remember was thinking I would give
everything to be healthy.
2. Then Chemo therapy came and I couldn’t walk. The air was
thin and my lungs felt heavy. I remember feeling my heart
slowing down. I felt as I was dying slowly. Because of
this I refused to sleep
in fear that I was not
going to wake up. Unfort-
unately for me my body
had an allergy reaction to the
chemotherapy and they
had to shoot me up with
medicine to counter affect
the reaction. This made
my veins burn. It felt like fire was traveling up my arms
and into my body. I cried. Not so much because of the
pain but of the thought this was actually happening. This
happened for 6-7 hours a session for six months.
Now after a year and half of my body fighting this cancer
I am currently in remission and have to check every three
months for any cancer activity. Now I can sit in traffic
and come to work. I can walk around on my own and
breathe again. I can wake up early and go to sleep in peace.
I’m gaining weight again and I recently join a gym where I
can walk. And it feels amazing. I never felt so alive in my
life and aware of the beautiful moments we overlook on a
daily basis. I was blessed to spend the holidays with my
3. family this past year and I look forward to next year’s
and the years after that. I see now how we don’t really
appreciate how lucky we are until something that’s out of
our control comes and tries to take everything from us.
Now there’s no such thing as a bad day or stress. As long
as I am alive every day is a good day because that’s another
day I get to be here.
Francisco Valencia
Age: 25
Diffused Large B Cell
non-Hodgkin lymphoma
“Time is our most precious commodity used it wisely”
