A journey of hope

Friday, Sept. 23, 2005 | 4:48 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

Sept. 24-25, 2005

In 1999, Becky Lamph was juggling caring for her 7-week-old child with trips to the hospital because her 19-month-old daughter had just been diagnosed with leukemia.

Exhausted and looking for something to take her mind off her difficulties, she flipped on the television one night and started watching bicyclist Lance Armstrong, a cancer-survivor, battle to win the Tour de France.

"He really inspired me and gave me hope," Lamph said.

It was inspiration and hope that Lamph would need again a little later in her life when she became a cancer patient herself.

Now a cancer survivor, Lamph decided to take on the ultimate challenge, the cross-country Tour of Hope bicycle ride alongside Lance Armstrong.

On Thursday in San Diego, Lamph will begin the ride with Armstrong and other cyclists on the first 106-mile leg of a nine-day odyssey. The Tour of Hope route winds through Phoenix, Austin and Houston, Texas, Jackson, Miss., Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and then to the nation's capital.

Lamph said she knows that the ride is difficult, but that brings more meaning to participating in it.

"If they made it easy, it wouldn't have enough of an impact," she said.

There are lessons for life to be learned from the tour. "If it's rainy, you go. If it's 100 degrees, you go," Lamph said.

Last year Lamph took Kelsey, her daughter who had to battle leukemia, to the Las Vegas Strip where the Tour of Hope with Lance Armstrong stopped in December.

Still undergoing radiation to complete her thyroid cancer treatment, Lamph said that she knew then that she wanted to become part of Armstrong's team.

Throughout its cross-country odyssey, the Tour of Hope team will make stops at cancer centers and in communities to encourage people to make a personal commitment to learn more about cancer and the benefit of cancer clinical trials.

"The cool thing about the Tour of Hope is the awareness, education and research that it brings to the disease," Lamph said.

"I hope that telling my family's story will inspire someone in the crowd to learn about cancer research and become more active in the cancer cause," she said.

As she trains six days a week on her bicycle, covering about 300 miles a week for the tour, Lamph said, she "feels really lucky."

A fervent triathlete who runs, swims and cycles, Lamph credits physical conditioning for pulling her through the family's ordeals with cancer.

Since 1991 Lamph has trained and participated in triathlons -- "with time out for pregnancies and cancer."

"I was in such good shape, I think it really helped," she said.

For six years before she had a family, Lamph said she taught history and was a coach at Green Valley High School, continuing to hone her athletic abilities.

Childhood cancer was unknown to Lamph or her family. One of the first decisions she and her husband, Matthew, had to face was whether to enroll their daughter, Kelsey, in a clinical trial for treatment of her leukemia.

They decided it was the right thing to do.

"We felt a deep sense of gratitude to those families before us who took part in the trials that led to the treatments that we hoped would cure our daughter," Lamph said.

"We also hoped Kelsey's involvement could help to fine tune those treatments for future patients," she said.

And Kelsey became another example of how cancer survival rates for childhood leukemia have improved. Twenty years ago only 5 percent of children diagnosed with cancer survived, but today 85 percent of childhood cancer patients survive.

Kelsey today is a healthy 8-year-old second grader at R. Guild Gray Elementary School.

Not only did Lamph nurse Kelsey through two years of treatment for leukemia, she also helped her grandmother through breast cancer.

And then there was the discovery of the lump in her own neck that turned out to be thyroid cancer.

It was frightening, but her daughter's battle with leukemia inspired her, she said.

After surgery to remove her thyroid, Lamph had a hard time shaking the exhaustion that overwhelmed her, but she continued to try to make life as normal as possible for her two daughters and her husband.

These days, Lamph is an active member of local cancer organizations. Her daughters, Kelsey and Reese, with mom's help, hold yard sales and donate the proceeds to organizations battling cancer.