The exhilaration of the race pumped through even me, standing amongst the sea of spectators. I waited anxiously for the first racer to round the corner. A figure clad in a yellow jersey rounded the corner and shakily, I stood from the lawn chair my mother had insisted upon bringing. The people around me were cheering him on, shouting his name. “It’s Lance Armstrong!” I heard a woman mutter beside me, and then louder, she shouted, “It’s Lance Armstrong!”
A smile stretched across my facial features; one of the few in the past few months, and I began clapping and cheering for the determined cyclist. I stood on my tiptoes, stretching up as far as I could to get a glimpse of his face. He was on the homestretch now, and the crowd would cheer him on to give him the last bit of energy he needed to make it across the finish line.
As he glided closer, I could see the beads of sweat dripping down his brow, which was crunched up in pain, or maybe it was determination. I wasn’t sure which. His chest heaved as his legs pumped the pedals of the bike to keep him moving. Behind him, I noticed another racer round the corner, and as more cheers flew through the crowd, he did not look back, but kept his eyes focused on his goal, and I felt a warm sensation spread through my body. Here was a man who had gone through what I am now, who had overcome the gruesome odds, and was showing the world…no showing himself, that he could succeed after defeating the illness.
I watched my hero in fascination, my heart beating quickly in my chest as I watched him. Excitement coursed through my own veins as I watched him push himself. He seemed to falter, if only for a brief moment, and I was reminded of that terrible crash where he was sent hurtling to the ground. I remembered seeing the photographs, and finding my heart in my throat. Seeing the scrapes across his arms and legs reminded me of what awaited me when I returned to the hospital after the race: all the pokes and pricks and tests. When I saw those photographs, I decided that I would be at the finish line to congratulate him, no matter what he placed, no matter what condition I was in.
And here I was, standing at the sidelines of the Tour de France, watching Lance, who was in the lead of the most physically demanding athletic tournament I could think of. I handed my jacket to my mother, who was standing so close to me I could feel her breath on the back of my neck, and pushed passed the nurse whom my mother had insisted upon coming with us. I dodged through the spectators to the front of the crowd to meet Lance as he rode passed. I could just barely hear my mother shouting after me through the chanting crowd, but I disregarded her pleas.
I focused on Lance. I could hear him panting as he rode passed, and without even making the decision to do so, I began to jog with him as he made it down the last grueling mile to the finish line. “It’s only a little further,” I urged him; “You’re doing great! Only a little more!”
He glanced over at me, his eyes immediately finding the violet scarf wrapped around my head and I thought I saw a flicker of sadness in his eyes. His eyes lingered on me for a moment longer before he nodded at me in silent thanks and returned his attention back to the race. But I continued to push him forward, until a security guard pulled me off of the track. I watched Lance until he passed the finish line, and leapt into the air, screaming in joy for his victory.
My mother found me some time later standing near the finish line, trying to convince another security guard to allow me to see Lance. Just as the guard was denying me entrance for the fifth time, my mother grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the guard, the spectators, and Lance. “What were you thinking, Maude?” she exclaimed almost angrily, “You’re lucky you didn’t collapse!”
I tried to explain to her that it was because of Lance Armstrong, and his defeat of the beast that was consuming me that I had found hope that I too, would defeat it. He gave me the strength to continue taking the pills that made me sick; that had caused me to go bald. He gave me the strength to accept that the chemotherapy wasn’t doing its job, and that if I wanted a chance to get back to living my life, as Lance was now, then I would have to allow the doctors to poison my body with radiation in an attempt to rid me of the curse that threatened to destroy me.
But she just didn’t understand.
As we left the road and made our way back to the van we had brought to the race, she continued to reprimand me. She was eager to get back to the hospital, I knew, where I would be safely within the reach of a handful of doctors and nurses should anything go wrong. Mother hadn’t even wanted to come today, and only had agreed when the psychiatrist told her that it would be good for me to get away from the hospital. He said that to have the chance to see this man in action would give me the strength I needed for the upcoming days, weeks, months, did she agree.
I knew that when I returned to the hospital, only pain would await me. The pain of endless pokes and prods from the nurses, of the mind-numbing pain that came with spinal taps, and the horror of losing a little bit of myself every day as the radiation destroyed me. But I wouldn’t give up hope, because as Lance once said in an interview, "Anything is possible. You can be told that you have a 90-percent chance or a 50-percent chance or a 1-percent chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight." And I wasn’t planning on giving up any time soon; I would fight for my life until the last, ragged breath left my body.