The cancer first hit when he was 31.
“I was literally playing poker with my friends, … and I felt a lymph node on my neck, and it felt like a rock in my neck,” says Burnaby resident Adam Charania.
He saw various doctors over the next couple of months and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. One of his lymph nodes had become cancerous and was growing.
“I was probably at the healthiest point in my life when I got diagnosed with it,” he says.
He then went through four rounds of “pretty brutal” chemo and lost a lot of weight and hair. He could barely walk after his treatments.
“As my oncologist said, ‘I’m going to truly try to kill you to keep you alive,’” he says.
The chemo worked, and Charania has been in remission since June 2006. The future looked bright and cancer free, until last fall. This time, it was his fiancée, Nicola Anderson, who was diagnosed with a rare form of uterine cancer. Charania was heartbroken.
“You know what the other person is going to go through, but you want to support them and be strong and help them,” he says. “You don’t wish it on anybody.”
In 2010, Charania did the Ride to Conquer Cancer, a cycling fundraiser for the B.C. Cancer Foundation, which funds research at the B.C. Cancer Agency.
This year, Charania has decided to do the 200-kilometer bike ride again to celebrate his 10-year remission milestone and to acknowledge what his fiancée is going through.
“The B.C. Cancer Agency has been really good to us. They do a lot of good work - the level of support, the level of treatment, everything they’ve done to keep both of us alive - has been pretty phenomenal,” he says.
Charania’s fiancée is also in remission and had been undergoing regular follow-up treatment.
Charania said he was impressed by the people who make the annual ride happen.
“It’s phenomenal to see all the volunteers and all the work that goes into it, all for a really good cause,” he says.
Charania is riding with Team MGBA, and their goal is to raise $10,700. So far, they have raised $2,550. To donate, go to http://bit.ly/TeamMGBA.
Fast facts on the Ride to Conquer Cancer:
- This year’s Ride to Conquer Cancer is on Aug. 27 and 28.
- Last year, more than 2,000 people participated raising $8.4 million.
- The annual event has raised more than $70 million since it started in 2009.
