The mission of DESTINATION X RIDE (DXR) is to save lives by unleashing awareness on the masses about three related conditions impacting thousands of people, including me and my family: Colorectal Cancer, Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP) and Desmoid Tumors by broadcasting the message as widely and as loudly as possible that early screenings can prevent much more serious stages of these diseases. It is my hope that as I ride across the country each year and meet with other patients and families they are inspired by DXR and can see that having your colon removed and/or diagnosis with these diseases is far from the end of the road but can be the launching place for expressing your passion and being of service.

My inspiration: In 1978, just four years after his diagnosis, my family lost my father to colon cancer via FAP when he was at the very young age of 32. Over the years we learned that, like so many people, my dad’s colon cancer would not only have been treatable but 100% preventable if he simply had a colonoscopy a few years earlier before his polyps developed into cancer.

Despite all of the information we know today about the simple and effective means of preventing colorectal cancer through early detection of pre-cancer colon polyps, far too many people are denied colorectal screenings due to lack of insurance and the misconception in the medical and insurance fields that colorectal cancer is a disease only effecting older adults. Although each year approximately 25,000 patients under the age of 50 are diagnosed with colorectal cancer, the current insurance standard is still to only provide colonoscopies and other related screenings to people over the age of 50.

I want to spare other families from experiencing the devastating loss that mine has gone through by raising awareness of the importance of screenings at all ages, empowering people to get the screenings they need as well as to provide information and connection in community to make the experience of survivorship about thriving not just surviving.

Like my father, and my siblings, and my niece and nephew, I have the condition of FAP and had my colon removed when I was 18 years old to prevent it from turning into colon cancer. I want to show other survivors, whether colon-less and living with FAP, colon cancer and desmoid tumors, or really any other condition compromising their bodies and challenging their sense of what life with illness looks like, that their diagnosis does not have to define them or stop them from enjoying life and not only living their dreams but creating new ones. That is what Destination X Ride represents.