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GuelphMercury.com - News - Running in memory of mom

Running in memory of mom

DAVE CARTER, GUELPH MERCURY

Nicole Chuchmach, 29, is running from Milton to New York in September 2008 to raise awareness for colorectal cancer in memory of her mom who died in 2006.

DAVE CARTER, GUELPH MERCURY Nicole Chuchmach, 29, is running from Milton to New York in September 2008 to raise awareness for colorectal cancer in memory of her mom who died in 2006.

DAVE CARTER, GUELPH MERCURY
Nicole Chuchmach, 29, is running from Milton to New York in ...

DAVE CARTER, GUELPH MERCURYNicole Chuchmach, 29, is running from Milton to New York in September 2008 to raise awareness for colorectal cancer in memory of her mom who died in 2006.

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September 08, 2007
LISA VARANO
MERCURY STAFF

GUELPH

Nicole Chuchmach is planning to run the equivalent of 18 1/2 marathons in the span of eight weeks.

She wants to run 760 kilometres -- the distance from her hometown of Milton to New York City -- to raise awareness for rectal cancer, the disease that killed her mother.

Sophie Chuchmach, a founder of Shakespeare Arms pub in Guelph, died Sept. 15, 2006. She had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer a year earlier.

Before the diagnosis, Sophie ignored her symptoms, Nicole said.

Sophie shrunk to a size two from a size 14. She was tired. There was bleeding.

"We weren't educated on this type of cancer," Nicole said. "Every stage is almost treatable if you can get it -- and I don't think she knew that. For her, cancer was such a bad word she didn't want to hear it. She thought automatically that would be the end."

Nicole wants others to know the warning signs so they can be spared the hard time her family went through.

She was her mother's primary caregiver during the illness. To cope with grief, Nicole took up jogging. She began with five kilometres per week but did 120 km each week at her peak last winter.

Now she is training for the journey to New York, which she has called Sophie's Run in memory of her mother. Although Nicole lives in Guelph, she is moving back to Milton in a few months.

Nicole will leave Milton Sept. 1, 2008 and run at least 20 km a day on secondary highways to New York. Some days she will run more than 40 km, about the length of a marathon.

Six people have said they will join her for all or part of the run.

"I was just going to have my dad drive a truck and run behind him," she said. "But we thought since so many people want to help out, why not do it right?"

Nicole decided to make New York her destination because she hopes to meet a woman her mother admired, cancer screening advocate and TV personality Katie Couric. The CBS Evening News anchor lost her husband to the disease.

Sophie's Run won the support of the Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada. This year more than 20,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer and 8,700 will die, said Barry Stein, president of the association and a colorectal cancer survivor.

"It's the second biggest cancer killer in the country," he said. "It affects men and women almost equally."

Ontario recently approved a screening program for the disease. Residents over 50 will be reimbursed for colorectal cancer screening kits as of the winter.

To raise money for colorectal cancer research, Nicole is holding a gala in Milton on Oct. 13. Almost all of the 220 tickets, which cost $100 each, have been sold. About 60 people from Guelph are attending.

"It inspires me even more now to go out and run," Nicole said. "I don't like to bother anybody. But it's nice to see that they care about the cause, too."

Throughout her battle with cancer, Sophie maintained a positive attitude. Nicole said she is trying to continue a fight her mother lost.

"She was my favourite," Nicole said. "I'd run around the world for her easily."

[email-masked]

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