My name is Susan Silberman. I am a 28 year old certified personal trainer from Chicago AIDS Ride. Things, unfortunately, did not go as I had planned. On the morning of June 2nd I left my house for a training ride. The evening of June 4th I awoke in unfamiliar surroundings.

I was to find out later that I was hit by a pick up truck at 9:30 am, driven by a drunk driver who had run a red light. My left femur was broken in three places and had severed the main artery in my leg. My right foot was fractured and dislocated. The driver of the vehicle had attempted to flee the scene. Two strangers in another car cut him off and blocked his escape. People in the near by McDonald’s called 911, and my fellow riders came to my aid and called my family. The quick and compassionate action of total strangers on the street probably saved my life. The driver of the vehicle posted bond, and was out of the police station before I was out of the emergency room.

It has been a grueling and painful four weeks in the hospital. I have had six surgeries including the amputation of my left leg below the knee. During this period, I have had a great deal of time to reflect. I have some thoughts about my own experiences and what you have to look forward to over the next few days that I would like to share.

Just as I needed the help of concerned citizens, who did not know me personally, so do the victims of AIDS. They are walking for advancements that only your support and commitment to their cause can provide.

Besides my desire to show my concern to those fighting the battle against AIDS, this ride also represented a personal test of my own strength and mental toughness. I expected this to be a life altering experience – instead, it has completely changed me forever. So, don’t take your body for granted. My sound physical condition was on of the factors that allowed me to survive, and has continued to serve me well.

This is really the time to overcome your limitations and meet every challenge on the road ahead – both on this ride, and in the years to come.

I will not be riding with you today, but I will be with you in spirit. Hopefully next year, I will be able to cross the finish line.

So good luck to all of you. Thanks for allowing me this time. Have a safe journey.

Sincerely,
Susan Silberman, Rider No. 413

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. The life of toil and effort, of labor gold strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph...A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole.




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Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these are the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit... So, I believed.

-- Lance Armstrong