Greenwood resident Dirk Cushing rides his bicycle near Craig Park on Sept. 7, 2022. Cushing is part of the Great Cycle Challenge, hoping to ride 1,000 miles this month to raise money for pediatric cancer research.
RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL
The photo was motivation for every long mile that had been cycled, and the hundreds of miles left ahead.
Dirk Cushing pulled up his Facebook feed and was greeted with an image of a teenage boy, laying in a hospital bed with a shaved head and tubes coming out of his arms. The post detailed the next step in Lucas Murray’s fight against Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Lucas, 14, and his brother Samuel Barrett, 6, have both been diagnosed with cancer. The two Valparaiso boys have become Cushing’s inspiration for cycling 1,000 miles this month. Lucas’ photo only strengthened his resolve.
“Looking at Lucas and Samuel, I know I can’t let them down,” he said.
Cushing is riding for the brothers as part of this year’s Great Cycle Challenge, an annual fundraiser for the Children’s Cancer Research Fund. This will be his seventh time taking part in the cycling challenge; he has raised more than $36,000 for childhood cancer research over that time.
The Greenwood resident’s goal this year is to raise $12,000 — driven to do so by Lucas and Samuel.
For the boys’ family, the effort is overwhelming, particularly with how little funding and attention is given to pediatric cancer research.
“People will say things like, ‘Kids now mostly survive pediatric cancer.’ And they’re right,” said Stephanie Barrett, mother of Lucas and Samuel. “But what people don’t talk about is how many kids go into organ failure after pediatric cancer or their life is shortened because of it or they can’t have children, which are all very difficult conversations that we have now with Lucas.
”What (Cushing) is doing, we need it. We need those dollars.”
Riding for a cause
The Great Cycle Challenge was founded in 2015. People of all ages and abilities from all 50 states set a personal riding goal for the month of September, and raise money on the way to reaching that goal.
Since it was founded, riders have completed a total of 25,647,476 miles and has raised more than $52 million for the Children’s Cancer Research Fund. The fund is a nonprofit dedicated to generating funding to find new treatments and cures to pediatric cancer.
Only about 4% of federal funding goes towards researching childhood cancers, which makes every dollar raised by the nonprofit vitally important.
“Over 15,000 American children are diagnosed with cancer every year and, sadly 38 children die every week,” said John Hallberg, CEO at Children’s Cancer Research Fund, in a statement. “Thanks to these riders we’re fueling groundbreaking research to save lives and give kids the brighter future they deserve.”
Those figures are what drew Cushing into the event.
He had been a runner through high school and college, but an injury to his Achilles tendon made running long distances impossible. Searching for a way to stay in shape, he decided to try cycling. Jumping on his 20-year-old mountain bike, he pedaled off.
“I went out on this ride, and got lost in southern Johnson County. By the time I got back, I’d ridden a little more than 30 miles on my mountain bike, and I collapsed in the yard,” he said.
That initial experience did not dissuade Cushing. He ended up buying a road bike more suitable for the long-distance rides he planned and kept riding.
Sometime along his journey, he learned about the Great Cycle Challenge.
“I saw it and thought, wait a minute, I can do something I enjoy and maybe even do some good? That sounded like a win-win,” he said.
Cushing has chosen a different person each year to ride for, including his neighbor from two doors down who has beaten cancer and is now happily married, as well as a girl in Indianapolis who has now been in remission from cancer for three years.
“It’s been a wonderful thing to see some of these things,” he said. “It might not have happened without some of this money.”
‘How much can you do to one family?’
The decision to ride for Lucas and Samuel this year stemmed from a connection through one of Cushing’s former coworkers. She had mentioned to Cushing that her college roommate’s son had been battling leukemia.
Samuel had been receiving treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia for the past three years. In the same month of his third birthday, he was diagnosed with the disease. Ever since, he has gone through treatment at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. For the first year and a half, he would go to the hospital every Friday for different types of chemotherapy.
Once that was done, Samuel took daily oral chemotherapy at home. He has responded well to the treatment, and his doctors projected him to be finished in early October.
“He seems to be doing well. But he was so young when he was diagnosed, we don’t know if he really knows what it feels like to feel good,” Barrett said.
Cushing wanted to honor Samuel and decided he would ride for him in the Great Cycle Challenge. Then he received another call from his former co-worker — Samuel’s brother had just been diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“I thought, are you kidding me? How much can you do to one family? So I was riding for both of them,” Cushing said. “But 500 miles wasn’t sufficient to do for two people, so I’m going to do 1,000.”
Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a cancer that starts in the white blood cells. Lucas was diagnosed with the disease in late May.
“It was quite a shock to us, feeling like we were getting to the end of the tunnel with Samuel’s treatment, only to get thrown back into the early phases of pediatric cancer,” Barrett said.
While Lucas is also receiving treatment at Lurie Children’s Hospital, with much of the same medical team as Samuel, his treatment is much different. His treatment is condensed into four or five months, starting with five cycles of chemotherapy.
Lucas is in the middle of his fifth cycle now. At the end of September, he will have a full body PET scan to search for any remaining cancer, and that will determine if he needs radiation treatment or if he can start weaning off the chemotherapy.
The intensity of the treatment has been hard.
“I feel like every treatment has gotten worse for me, as far as how I felt, and my mental state,” Lucas said.
After such a difficult three years for the family, it was meaningful when Cushing reached out about riding in honor of Samuel and Lucas.
“What Dirk is doing, and the whole Great Cycle Challenge, is important because the money all goes to pediatric cancer research,” Barrett said. “It’s amazing he reached out to us.”
Miles to go
To get ready for the Great Cycle Challenge, Cushing trained in July and August by riding as many miles as he could. He has to average riding 32 miles each day in order to reach his goal in September.
After finishing his job as a deputy prosecutor in Marion County, Cushing gets home and jumps on the bike. He tries to get as many miles as he can before it gets too dark. Usually he can knock out 20 to 30 miles that way, cruising around Johnson County and surrounding areas.
The larger chunks come on the weekend, and he has planned some more lengthy rides in coming weeks. He was able to log 47 miles already following a flat ride through Hancock County, and future routes include riding 70 miles to Connersville and back, and a 90-mile trek from Converse to Richmond.
“Those kinds of rides will really help,” he said.
All the while, Cushing has been spreading the word of his mission and asking people to support it through donations. He’s also holding out hope that a majority of donations come on Sept. 14 — which has been dubbed “Kick Cancer’s Butt Day.”
Every donation received by Great Cycle Challenge participants will be matched by corporate sponsors. Those donations are supercharged to do more good in the fight against pediatric cancer, Cushing said.
“If you look at my Facebook page, I’m telling people, I want your money, but not yet. Wait until (Sept. 14),” he said.
Cushing has added another incentive to his fundraising. He told Stephanie Barrett that if he exceeds his fundraising goal of $12,000 by 50% — a total of $18,000 — he’ll let Lucas and Samuel shave his head.
“It’s really cool that he’s doing this,” Lucas said.
He hopes there are enough people who want to see him bald to help him reach that.
“The people who have donated, the people who have supported me, they’ve never let me down. So we’ll see how it goes this year,” he said.
As of Thursday, Cushing has ridden 281 miles, while raising $621.01.
He realizes that he’s the engine behind this fundraising effort, but he wants to ensure the focus is on children like Lucas and Samuel, and the research that the money raised goes towards, as opposed to him.
That’s what really matters.
“It’s nice to be able to help. If I could do this whole thing without my name or picture being a part of it, I’d be great with that,” he said. “It’s hard to do that when I’m the one trying to raise money for it. But if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.”
HOW TO HELP
Kick Cancer’s Butt Day
Greenwood resident Dirk Cushing is taking part in this year’s Great Cycle Challenge, a fundraiser supporting pediatric cancer research. Though he is collecting donations all month long, those made on Sept. 14 will be matched by corporate sponsors.
So to make the most of donations, Cushing is encouraging supporters to give on that day.
Donations can be made at greatcyclechallenge.com/Riders/DirkCushing.
People can follow along on his progress at that site, as well as at facebook.com/dirk.cushing
