LAWRENCE: Rider students walk all night for cancer fund-raiser

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   Three little words — “hope, faith, courage” — are tattooed just above Alison Knepple’s right hip, but this is not just an ordinary tattoo.
   Those three words are a reminder of the battle with cancer that the Rider University freshman fought three years ago, as a high school junior in her home town on Long Island.
   Alison shared her battle with cancer, which nearly claimed her right leg, with several hundred Rider University students. She was the keynote speaker at the college’s fourth annual Relay for Life fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society.
   The Relay for Life, which was an all-night event held at the school’s Student Recreation Center Saturday night, is the signature fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society. The participants walked around a track all night long to symbolize the fact that cancer never sleeps.
   Alison is the first to admit that she was a typical teenager. She played on her high school’s volleyball and basketball teams, and did all the things that teenagers do. That is, until she ended up in the emergency room at the local hospital because of a stress fracture in her shin.
   ”I lived a normal and healthy life until (the day) I was diagnosed with a type of cancerous tumor in my right leg. The day I found out this information was the day that my life changed forever,” she said.
   Alison said she told the orthopedic surgeon in the emergency room about a pain in her hip that she had for many years. She had mentioned it to other physicians, who dismissed it as part of being an athlete, she said. But this surgeon sent her for a bone scan and then a magnetic resonance imaging test.
   The MRI showed a shadow in her right leg, she said. After a bone biopsy and a month’s worth of waiting, Alison and her family discovered that the shadow was a cancerous tumor, and that it had to be removed.
   ”Crying was all of our first reactions,” Alison said. “Shock was my second. The only thing I asked myself was, ‘How could this be happening to me? Why me?’ I will never find out the answers to those questions, but I do know one thing — this experience has made me stronger than I could ever imagine.”
   That experience brought her into contact with several young children who were patients — just as she was — at Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in New York City. One little girl needed to have almost all of her organs removed for a biopsy to check for cancer, while another little girl was born with a brain tumor and had been in and out of the hospital all her life.
   The cure for Alison’s cancer was the removal of half of the bone. The area of the missing bone was filled in with cement, plus a screw in her hip and a plate to hold it all together. There is a long scar that takes up most of her upper thigh — and the tattoo.
   ”Cancer is a scary thing. According to the studies, I have had this tumor my whole life and never knew. A year later, I would have been leg-less. I cannot express in words how thankful I am to be standing here in front of you,” she told her schoolmates.
   ”I have a scar to remind me of my strength. People may see cancer as a curse, but I saw it as a blessing, to teach me strength and to learn to live your life to the fullest because you never know when something can happen that can change your life forever,” she said.
   ”I can’t wait to kick this event off with all of you,” Alison said.
   And kick it off they did.
   Alison headed up the steps to the track above the gym to lead off the Survivor Lap, which is one of the highlights of the Relay for Life. About a dozen people — all cancer survivors who wore special purple T-shirts and carried purple balloons — walked the first lap. The students on the gym floor below clapped and screamed, and the survivors smiled and raised their balloons higher.
   The survivors were soon joined by other students who also walked along the track.
   Meanwhile, dozens of teams made up of Rider students camped out on the floor of the gym at the Student Recreation Center. There was the Team Orange Iguanas — so named because they wore bright orange T-shirts in support of junior Amelia Corney, who survived leukemia.
   ”We’ll be up all night. We’ll sleep all day tomorrow,” Amelia said.
   Don’t forget the Pink Ladies, who wore pink T-shirts, and the Animal Crackers, whose T-shirts proclaimed their goal to “Take A Bite Out of Cancer.” Greek fraternities and sororities also formed teams to raise money for the Relay for Life.
   Some students tossed a football to pass the time, while others played cards or other games. Rider junior Tom Vajtay and his team — Rider Science and Circle K International — played Risk, albeit with a Hungarian language version of the game board. Tom is of Hungarian descent.
   ”The board is in Hungarian, but we know all the rules,” Tom said.
   Samantha Sciortino was busy, pecking away at her laptop computer. She wasn’t playing a video game. She was putting the finishing touches to a paper for her creative writing class that was due at midnight Saturday.
   And there was food — lots and lots of food. One team had a crate full of juice and snacks, and another had a table full of food. Eating is one way to make sure you stay up all night.
   Rider senior Lindsay Galbraith, who chaired this year’s Relay for Life, said she has been passionate about raising money to fight cancer since she was 8 years old. Practically everyone knows someone who has had cancer, and that’s why it is important to raise money for cancer research, she said.
   By the time Saturday evening rolled around, Lindsay said nearly 900 people had signed up to participate. She said she was expecting about 1,000 people to take part, which is more than twice the number of participants in the first year of Rider’s Relay for Life.
   ”Cancer haunts us all. It is important (to participate in the Relay for Life) because for all we know, it could be you someday that has cancer. This event provides a sense of community and that we are fighting it together,” Lindsay said.