In Marysville, brain cancer survivor helps a bicycling crusader

Published 6:45 pm Thursday, December 10, 2015

Jessica Morgan and Paul Rodriguez live on opposite sides of the country. Until meeting this week, they mostly chatted online. What they have in common is a cruel enemy — brain cancer.

Morgan, who lives in Lake Stevens, was diagnosed with the disease in 2009. At the University of Washington Medical Center, she had surgery for a grade II astrocytoma, a type of brain tumor. She is screened regularly and takes anti-seizure medications.

“There’s a chance it could come back,” 46-year-old Morgan said Thursday. “I pray all the time.”

Rodriguez, 51, is the picture of health. The Florida man is near the end of a cross-country bicycle trip.

Starting June 11, he rode across the southern United States and crossed the desert Southwest. He made his way up the West Coast. This week, he stopped in Lynnwood, Everett and Marysville.

He rides in honor of his late brother. Philip Rodriguez was 37 when he died in 2010 of glioblastoma multiforme, a malignant brain tumor. Paul Rodriguez said his brother lived in Los Angeles and was a member of the Writers Guild of America, the union representing TV and film writers.

“He was diagnosed in 2009 before the Christmas holidays. He had an operation Jan. 15, 2010, and died in March 2010,” said Rodriguez, a land surveyor who left home and work to fulfill a mission.

Wednesday night, he met Morgan at a Marysville restaurant. She had encountered him more than a year ago through an online brain cancer support group. During his travels, Rodriguez has visited with others he met online because of cancer.

“With brain cancer, there are not a lot of support groups around,” said Morgan, who receives Social Security disability benefits. “I would have to go to Seattle. Most of the people I’ve met have been over the Internet.”

By Thursday, Rodriguez had raised $4,450 for his effort through GoFundMe, a fund-raising website. He is posting travel pictures on Facebook, on a page called “The Mission: cycling for brain cancer awareness.”

On the GoFundMe page, Rodriguez wrote that he promised his brother he would bike from Florida to California as a way to draw people’s attention to brain cancer. As for fund raising to fight the disease, Rodriguez said he hopes people contribute to organizations that battle cancer and help patients.

This is his second long-haul endurance test for the cause. By this time last year, he had ridden from his home in Jacksonville, Florida, to Maine. Along the way, he met Anthony Fratto, mayor of the village of Phoenix, New York, who battled brain cancer before he died in August.

“There’s a network of people. We all talk to each other about brain cancer,” he said Thursday. “It’s larger than I ever knew,” he said, listing notable victims of the disease: Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau Biden, Sen. Edward Kennedy, NFL Films co-founder Steve Sabol and Major League Baseball’s Tug McGraw.

“We need more awareness of brain cancer,” agreed Morgan, the mother of two grown children and a grandmother of three.

Rodriguez, who rides a KHS hybrid road and speed bike, has camped or stayed with supporters along the way. With this week’s stormy weather, Morgan helped him get a hotel room in Marysville on Wednesday. And Marysville’s La Hacienda gave him dinner. In other places, he has stayed in firehouses and churches. “People who bicycle have opened their doors to him,” Morgan said.

“It hails, it snows, it’s hot, it’s cold,” said Rodriguez, describing a trip that had him sleeping under the stars in the desert and eating a Snickers bar in Oregon for Thanksgiving.

He has more stops he wants to make before heading home for the holidays by bus, train or plane — “whatever I can afford,” he said. Rodriguez hopes to visit the family of 13-year-old Alex Shepherd in Ashland, Oregon. Alex, who had appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” died of brain cancer in May.

It was Morgan, a brain cancer warrior, who called The Herald to tell us about the man who turned grief into a heartfelt goal. “Paul deserves the recognition,” she said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Cancer ride

Florida’s Paul Rodriguez was in Snohomish County this week on a cross-country bike ride in honor of his late brother, Philip, who died of brain cancer.

Follow his ride at www.facebook.com. Search: “The Mission: cycling for brain cancer awareness”

Contribute to his ride at www.gofundme.com. Search: “cycling for brain cancer awareness”