August 21, 2007

The toys and dolls inside Grace Oughton's room will not be played with until the three-year-old returns home from New York. That is where the little girl is undergoing chemotherapy for her second bout of a rare pediatric cancer called Neuroblastoma.

"I remember thinking, specifically, when she was diagnosed, how small her casket would be at eighteen months," shares her father Alec. "I wondered if would I be able to even talk at her funeral."

Desperate for a way to help, Alec hopes his bike will be able to save Grace's life.

Joined by four other desperate dads, Alec will start on the 'Loneliest Road Campaign' on September 10, riding from Sacramento to Washington, DC. The campaign is an effort to raise money for the development of a treatment that could save their kids' lives.

"This wasn't something we could do car washes or bake sales to accomplish. We needed to do something that was really difficult," Alec said of the idea.

The price tag of the treatment development is steep, $3 million. But it is far outweighed by the fathers' hope of sparing their kids pain and possibly even death.

"He's done so much up front research on this that the potential is that if he had the money right now, we could, very soon, be giving this to our kids," Alec explained of the doctor who said if he had the money he could develop the antibody.

Between time at the hospital and at work, it is not easy for Alec to train for the rigorous 3,700 mile ride. But he is ready for this opportunity to be able to do something in a situation where most are rendered powerless.

"The journey will be really difficult," Alec predicted. "It's going to be challenging and tiring. It is going to be painful to be away from the kids, and painful in other ways. But it is nothing compared to what our kids go through."

So far, the dads have raised $15,000 of their $3 million goal.

They will ride non-stop, passing through Charlottesville around September 28.