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Granby Resident Running NYC Marathon for Cancer Research

On March 17, 2011, Granby resident, David Budlong, received the phone call he had been dreading. A physician called him to tell him that a lump in his neck was squamous cell carcinoma. On April 4, 2011 he had a modified radical neck dissection, a four-hour surgical procedure, to remove the seven-centimeter tumor that had grown in his neck under his right jawbone. During the first week of May 2011, after recovering from surgery, he began a seven-week treatment regimen of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The radiation therapy was five days a week and the chemotherapy was once a week. His treatment was conducted at the NEAG Cancer Center at UConn Health Center.

“I am indebted to my physicians; Rob Dowsett M.D. (Radiation Oncologist), Upendre Hegde M.D. (Medical Oncologist), and Jeffrey Spiro M.D. (Head and Neck Surgical Oncologist) and the entire treatment staff at the NEAG Cancer center. They saved my life.”

He has had three diagnostic scans over the past three years and has remained cancer-free since completing treatment on June 15, 2011.

On March 26 of this year, three years after his diagnosis, he received unexpected good news. He had won a slot in the NYC Marathon via the NYC Marathon lottery draw. “They say you have about a one-in-10 chance of getting in via the lottery so I was pretty surprised when they notified me,” says Budlong. “I immediately signed up to run for Fred’s Team/Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center charity. I wanted to run for those who can’t and to help in the fight to cure cancer.”

Budlong began running in earnest eight months after finishing treatment and in the past two years has run more than 24 road races. He has run the Granby road race the past two years. He ran the Providence Half Marathon on September 29, 2013 and the Hartford Half Marathon on October 12, 2013. His most recent accomplishment was on June 8 when he ran the inaugural Heartbreak Hill Half Marathon in Newton, Massachusetts.

“ A year ago I decided to run a marathon. I previously ran the Chicago Marathon in 1986, San Francisco in 1987, and San Diego in 1989. I have never run an East Coast marathon and, having grown up in Rhode Island, I wanted to run (at least) one in the Northeast.”

His fundraising goal for the NYC Marathon is $10,000. He has a personal fundraising website sponsored by Fred’s team at http://mskcc.convio.net/site/TR/FredsTeamEvents/Freds_Team?px=2862496 and pg=personal and fr_id=2150.

If you don’t want to type in the link you can go to www.FredsTeam.com. At that site you can put David Budlong into the “participant area” and that will take you to his fundraising site. If you have any questions, contact David at dabudlong@sbcglobal.net.

“Every person in Granby either has had cancer, had a family member or friend with cancer, or during their lifetime will be diagnosed or know someone who will be diagnosed. Please consider donating anything you can and if you are unable to donate, please pass this information on to others and/or post the information on any social media site that you might use.”