On the morning of January 20th, 2010, Luke Wedel hopped on a plane headed for Omaha, Nebraska to give a presentation to a group of clients. He kissed his wife good-bye and said “See you tonight.” Neither of them knew that this would be the day that he would be diagnosed with a brain tumor – a grade II oligodendroglioma.

Two weeks later, the tumor was resected and the road to recovery began. After a few setbacks, a year long treatment of chemotherapy began in April. Luke found that exercise and physical activity helped to alleviate the worst of the side effects of chemo – sweating out the excess chemicals. He got back into his long time passion of martial arts, and began going several times a week, even when chemo made him feel terrible. In October, Luke may have been a little overzealous in his training, and the audible snap that was heard by all during an otherwise perfectly executed roundhouse kick proved to be a torn ACL in his left knee. Quite troublesome, since five years earlier he had damaged the ACL in his right knee but never had surgery to have it repaired.
So in December of 2010, he became the talk of his orthopedic doctor’s office by having a single surgery to repair both knees, in between chemo treatments.
The man can never do anything halfway. 😉

After more recovery, physical therapy and ongoing chemo treatments, he heard that Head For The Cure was planning their inaugural event in North Texas on May 14th, 2011. He was determined that he was not only going to be there and participate, but he was going to run it. And when he gets it in his mind that he’s going to accomplish something….there’s no stopping him. There were almost 2500 participants at that event, and just 5 months after a bi-lateral ACL reconstruction and a year long chemo treatment, Luke placed 777th. If that race was a slot machine in Vegas, he just scored the jackpot. 🙂

That was all in the first year since diagnosis.

This year is Luke’s third Head For The Cure event, and since that first one, he’s accomplished a lot. He has supported other brain cancer patients, providing moral support and sharing resources that he has found. He volunteers his time for a variety of organizations, including The Legacy Brain Foundation and The Revolutionary War Veteran Associations “Project Appleseed”.

Luke is an amazing, hard working, motivational, and inspirational man. He faces anything that comes his way head on, and doesn’t let anything stop him.

I am absolutely blessed to know this man, my husband and best friend of twelve years.