April ,May and June of 2004 we were cruising. Nicky was shining at UM baseball and making great strides on the Saxophone at school as well as straight A’s…of course. Joey was lighting up the ice, scoring many game winning goals and played great in our first ever tournament. Finally….good times!
Now, with my new found remission, it was time for me to give back…in a big way. Over the past seven years, I had put together several “Light the Night” walks. These fund raising walks were started by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America to raise funds for their cause and allow the survivors and those who had passed a moment of recognition and acknowledgement of those inflicted with Leukemia and Lymphoma and the battle fought. A very touching and emotional event where friends, family and boosters carry red balloons with white lights in side and survivors carry white balloons signifying their status as such. We march in the thousands through streets and promenades around the country raising funds and creating awareness for the cause. It was a great event.
My Family and I walked in several events with other family and friends. We raised funds for our participation and the wonderful cause. I now felt that It was time to rachet up the fundraising. Create an event of our own where all proceeds raised would benefit the Society. This event would become “Team Belaggio”. Our team would create the first ever “Team Belaggio Golf Classic”! A golf tournament and dinner to have fun and raise money. Our first tournament would be held at the Northampton Valley CC in Richboro, PA. A great colf course with banquet facilities and the ability to handle a large outing. The perfect spot. I was very new to this but being a born leader, ha-ha, I took the reins on a beautiful Monday morning and orchestrated a 144 golfer event with a 200 person banquet dinner after golf. It went great! Barking out orders to all of my volunteer family and friends, who were starting to hate me, we ran everything as smooth as possible. We had raffles going on, gift basket and prize packages donated, special events and contests on the course as well as food and drink all day. The event was spectacular and everyone very generous. After beginning about 6 am and ending finally around 10 pm, I was whipped. We all were. The September event raised almost $15,000 dollars for the Leukemia Society and made a lot of people very happy. My Doctors from Hanahmen were there as well as Dr. Terzian from Frankford too! A great time had by all!
I slept in a little the next morning. I had been going balls out for many weeks and extra crazy the last few days up to the event. It was an enormous amount of work but well worth it. It was Tuesday morning and my next job was to drive down to the Philadelphia International Airport area where the offices of the Leukemia Society were located. I wanted to get the proceeds from the event to the directors of the Society as soon as possible. My boys and my neighbor Fred Meyers agreed to take the ride with me. We took off down I-95 south and were on our way when I started feeling very ill. I had no idea what was happening but I was in extreme abdominal pain. I managed to get into the offices and hand over the proceeds but excused myself immediately. This was bad.
We made it back to the car and I almost incoherently drove us all to Hanahmen Hospital, doubled over in horrible pain. I told Fred to drop me off at the ER and take the boys home. Tell Lori that I will call her when I knew what was happening. I basically crawled into the ER and signed myself in. I needed to be in a bathroom immediately. I had horrible pain in my back and couldn’t urinate even though I had a huge urge to do so. I remained in the bathroom stall for an hour or more before crawling again to the nurses station. “Sorry…not yet” they said. Finally they took me back because I told them that my doctor was Dr. Dave in Oncology. Finally!! The ER staff thought that I came off the street trying to get drugs. Nice job, eh. Diagnoses…Kidney stones! OMG!! FREAKING AWFUL!!! IV painkillers made the situation better and I spent the night passing this SOB. Dr. Dave said that I was very dehydrated and exhausted from the prior day. Probably caused the stone. I got out of the hospital the next day and proceeded home to rest as per my docs.
Team Belaggio was a great success. The Leukemia Society was very impressed with our first attempt at being a fundraising player and plans were already in the works for outing number two! This was giving back and I owed it to them. We’ll up our game next year. Now, I gotta pee. HORRIBLE!!
Next up: Pups