Glen Ellyn woman readies for 9th Leukemia & Lymphoma marathon

Vaughan Nesslar left her Glen Ellyn home at 4:30 a.m. one recent Saturday morning to drive to Chicago's lakefront to train for a marathon that will be on Oct. 18 in San Francisco.

The Nike Women's Marathon will be the ninth for Nesslar, a 67-year-old grandmother and self-proclaimed nonathlete. Yet she's not trying to prove anything or break any records in doing the 26.2-mile distance.

She walks instead of runs and she does it for people like 5-year-old Maclain Happold of Geneva. He's the patient hero she'll honor in San Francisco as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training program.

"I love doing it. I love the people," Nesslar said. "You meet amazing people when you are doing for someone else."

Maclain is one of the happy stories for Nesslar. Diagnosed with pre B cell acute lymphocytic leukemia at the age of 2½, Maclain is now a lively kindergartner whose disease is in remission and who will celebrate his sixth birthday in a couple of days. He plays flag football and does gymnastics.

"He's a very healthy little boy. You would never know he had cancer in his life," said Maclain's mother, Michele Happold of Geneva, who herself will run in her son's honor on Oct. 11 in the Bank of Chicago Marathon.

Happold has participated in the Team in Training program for three years since her son was diagnosed.

"That was my outlet to raise funds for the organization, hoping another mother would not have to go through what I went through," she said.

Nesslar didn't know anyone with leukemia when she started with Team In Training 12 years ago. She had begun a fitness program that had her doing a 5K every weekend when she received a letter from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society asking if she would like to participate in a marathon in Dublin, Ireland.

"I had to raise $4,500 to go to Dublin," she recalled. "Everybody thought the 55-year-old would never be able to do a marathon in the first place and they all contributed nicely."

Within the next couple of years, Nesslar had a 3-year-old cousin and her mother diagnosed with leukemia, and a bridesmaid at her son's wedding and another cousin diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She continued to sign up for marathons and has done three in Dublin, three in Chicago, one in Bermuda, one in New York separate from the Team In Training program, and a 100-mile bike ride in Florida. She can walk a marathon on flat terrain in a little over six hours.

Nesslar credits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's training program with helping her succeed.

"It you follow the Leukemia Society's program, anybody can do it," she said. "I was 55 when I did my first one and I had never, never participated in a running, walking sport in my life."

Team In Training provides coaching and a detailed five-month training schedule to help participants prepare for an event. Nesslar walks, runs or does cross-training most days of the week. On Wednesday evening, she and other participants have met at Glenbard West High School to work on building core strength. On Saturdays, the four Chicago area training groups get together and often do longer walks or runs.

"It's a lot of training," Nesslar said. "You go through at least two pairs of gym shoes during training."

Still, Nesslar admits to being a little worried about San Francisco.

"I'm terrified of hills. None of the marathons I've done are hills," she said.

Funding the fight

While the hills may be a challenge, Nesslar seems to have conquered the art of fundraising. For the San Francisco marathon, participants need to raise $3,800; for Nesslar the amount was reduced to $3,040 because she is mentoring five other participants. Nesslar said she already has raised nearly $4,000. Seventy-nine percent of the money goes to research and support of patients and their families, she said. The rest covers the participant's airfare, hotel and a couple of meals for the event.

"I send out begging letters all the time," said Nesslar, who also raises money for the Ulster Project, which brings Irish children to the United States for summer visits. "My husband says anybody I've ever shaken hands with gets a letter. It's true."

Nesslar, who also used Facebook in her fundraising this year, sends out her letters on colorful stationery with illustrations of happy kids on the bottom. She refers to herself as "Grandma Vaughan" and shares good news.

Her story in this year's letter is of Courtney Knotts, who was Nesslar's patient hero for two years. Diagnosed with leukemia when she was 71/2, Courtney is now a sophomore at Glenbard West High School and a thriving member of the school's gymnastics team. Nesslar, who does part-time secretarial work at the school, was thrilled to see Courtney's name on the team roster.

"It really brought home just how important the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is to so many people," she wrote in her letter.

Another of Nesslar's former patient heroes is now in college.

But not all of the news is good. Two of the children she walked for have passed away. Survival rates for children with the most common form of leukemia are now nearly 90 percent, but some suffer cognitive deficits and other side effects because of treatment, said Megan Connolly, spokeswoman for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Illinois Chapter.

According to the society's Web site, an estimated 139,860 Americans will be diagnosed with new cases of leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma this year. About 53,240 patients will die of the blood cancers in 2009, accounting for nearly 9.5 percent of cancer deaths.

Teams on a mission

The Team In Training program, started in 1988, has gone a long way to raise awareness and money to combat leukemia and lymphoma. Approximately 40,000 people participate annually and more than $950 million has been raised since the program started.

Roughly 1,400 people from Illinois are participating this year, including 30 in the San Francisco marathon, Connolly said. Team In Training offers a variety of sports and events for which individuals can register. Many like Nesslar have participated before.

"We do have a lot of alumni who get tied to the mission," Connolly said. "It's for all levels from beginners to people who have done this before."

Nesslar said she has no plans to quit. The mother of four and grandmother of nine has been active all her life.

Before taking the part-time job at Glenbard West three years ago, she had owned a tearoom in Glen Ellyn for three years and was a caterer for 15. She's worked at a bank and an industrial supply company.

The 40-year Glen Ellyn resident serves as wedding coordinator at her church and is a member of Those Were the Days Radio Players.

Nesslar admits there are days when she doesn't feel like getting out to walk or work out, but she thinks of a T-shirt she once saw. It read, "If you think training is difficult - try chemo."

"That says it all," she said.

To contribute to Nesslar's cause, go to pages.teamintraining.org/il/nikesf09/vnesslar or send a check made out the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to Vaughan Nesslar, 1650 Sawyer, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137. For details on Team in Training, see TeamInTraining.org.