After learning of yet another friend’s death from lung cancer it is clear that while my bike across America is over, the campaign for lung cancer awareness must continue. To that end, BikeBreatheBelieve will continue to post information about lung cancer, dedications to people living with lung cancer and who have died from lung cancer (please continue to send dedications to the website) and blogs about life on the bike and off.

Today was a “back on the bike” day as I have decided to bike north for a bit in hopes that the Coronovirus curve in NJ will flatten in the meantime. David, Bella and I thus “took a turn” in St. Augustine this morn and headed north, crossing into Georgia at St. Mary’s River in Kingsland and arriving this afternoon in St. Simons, known for its salt marshes and voted America’s #1 Favorite Romantic Town! The good news is that there is a bike route in the making called the East Coast Greenway from Key West, Florida to Calais, Maine that will be a beautiful way to bike the east coast. The bad news is that it’s not expected to be competed until 2030 which means navigating north now is a challenge. As always, we will take it one day at a time.

While the entire world has “taken a turn” the past few months, for lung cancer patients and cancer patients generally, this turn has become a U-turn as treatments and trials are disrupted and research and funding redirected to COVID-19. I say this without judgment—just as a statement of fact—and hope and pray that we are able to find a solution to the COVID-19 crisis so that we can once again focus on the many other health issues facing our country, of which lung cancer is only one.

I was very “healthy” at the time I was diagnosed with lung cancer and I believe the fact that I had good eating and exercise habits has helped my prognosis immensely. Perhaps one of the takeaways from the current COVID-19 crisis is the importance of having healthy habits before one gets sick and there is no better time than today to start those habits if they are not already in place. As they say: There’s no time like the present! – Isabella