My brother, Taylor Pedersen, was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma when he was 17. It’s a cancer that affects mainly young people and it strikes the nerves, muscles, cartilage, joints, blood vessels, bone and soft tissues. His experience inspired our family to try to do something to raise money towards sarcoma research. Sarcomas are called “the forgotten cancers.” They receive little notoriety or funding. We wanted to change that.
We started the Pigeon Lake Pedal seven years ago. It’s a 60-kilometre ride that starts at Pigeon Lake Provincial Park. There’s also a 20-kilometre route and a walking route available. This year we plan to direct funds towards buying two CT/PET scanners. Not sarcoma-specific, they can detect many cancers at early stages. We generally raise close to $50,000 a year and, to date we’ve raised more than a quarter of a million dollars.
The ride is on July 2 this year. There’s more information and opportunities to enter or sponsor riders at pigeonlakepedal.com.
Taylor is 23 now and his health is good. Right now he’s working as a summer student in a lab at Massachusetts Hospital in Harvard and he’s going to Norway on an exchange next year. He plans to be a doctor. — Karin Pedersen
