Riding for a Reason

SARASOTA — Tony McEachern knows better than anyone life is not about what you cannot do — but rather what you can.

Once an avid adventure racer and cyclist, McEachern was diagnosed with brain cancer in spring 2003. But instead of treating the diagnosis as a death sentence, he chose to treat it as the next great adventure of his life.

“It’s been a fun journey,” he says. “That’s kind of a spin of it. I have to do that for myself.”

One year ago, McEachern launched the Team Tony Foundation, an organization focused on providing cancer patients the support they need to stay physically, mentally and emotionally engaged while battling cancer.

To raise funds, the organization is hosting a 200-mile bicycle ride that starts in Ormond Beach and ends at the Village Bikes shop on Lakewood Ranch Main Street. The Cycle of Life event will run from Oct. 7-9. Registration, due by Sept. 15, costs $300 and includes all meal and travel accommodations.

A shorter 100-mile ride, for which riders must register by Oct. 1, will start and end on Lakewood Ranch Main Street Oct. 9. Participants of the Ranch ride will meet the two-day group at the ride’s second-day, halfway point and finish the race together.

Each participating rider is asked to raise $500 — or whatever he or she can — for the cause, and to ride in honor of a loved one who has battled cancer.

“It reminds us all why we’re doing it,” McEachern says. “It comes full circle for the mission.”

RIDING TANDEM
When McEachern and his teammates completed a 621-mile, 10-day adventure race in Vietnam in 2002, McEachern had a lemon-sized tumor growing in his brain.

After returning home to Sarasota, McEachern was cycling on Longboat Key just a year later when he had an unexpected seizure. A full MRI at the hospital revealed McEachern’s cancer.

Because of the tumor’s location, McEachern faced several dangerous surgeries. Following the first two, McEachern went to the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University for three more surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation and experimental treatments. Ultimately, the treatments took his peripheral vision and sense of direction.

But the cycling enthusiast has adapted well. For example, he now rides a tandem bicycle, letting another rider steer, to accommodate his vision loss.

In 2007, McEachern walked across Florida to raise money and awareness for cancer patients, but he still wanted to do more. In 2009, he walked from Durham, N.C., to Sarasota, trekking more than 800 miles in 43 days, and raising $24,000 for Duke’s cancer research efforts.

Team Tony’s vice president and vice chairman, Lori Mishos, a longtime friend, met him on the road to finish McEachern’s walk, despite physical challenges of her own — partial paralysis.

A longtime athlete, Mishos lost the use of her left leg in 2008 during one of about 19 surgeries to remove thyroid cancer and treat another medical condition.

“I kept walking (after the 5K) because I wanted to meet Tony as he walked back in,” says Mishos, who is battling thyroid cancer now for the third time. “I did about eight miles with him. It felt like five million miles.”

TEAM TONY
Once home, McEachern’s resolve to help cancer patients grew. And when he decided he wanted to do something more, he knew where to turn.

“Lori was the first person I called when I wanted to do something,” he says. “This is our foundation.”

Although many cancer patients have friends and family to support them, those individuals are being affected by the diagnosis, as well, and cancer patients often still feel like they are on a remote desert island, Mishos says.

That’s why she and McEachern agree it’s important for survivors to walk alongside those people who are fighting cancer currently.

“You’re a person first,” Mishos says. “You have cancer, but it’s not who you are.”

Funds raised from the ride will be used primarily for marketing efforts. Eventually, the foundation hopes funds will support a full-time staff. For more, visit www.teamtony.org.

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].