Is it worth it?

Today I had to go to work in my wheelchair. I usually manage to avoid that, the only times I have to is right after surgery and even than I sometimes manage to do crutches instead. Today walking wasn't an option since the weekend had been very hard on my leg. Worked the usual shifts voluntering for LiveStrong on Friday and trained afterwards.
Saturdaymorning I had a lot of "runnig" around to do for our LiveSTRONg booths: bought three party tents for my team mates and myself and decided to complete my own by finding tables to put in them and lettering to put on the tent. That required more walking than I anticipated. Had to hurry to get groceries before driving to Amsterdam for a meeting with a lovely lady from the Dutch Cancer Institute/ Anthony van Leeuwehoek hospital, Pelagia de Wildt. She was a very passionate lady who told us a lot about the Institute and the hospital. Very good to hear the hospital is internationally seen as one of the best hospitals for cancer research and treatment. Karen and Manfred (my NL4LiveSTRONG teammates)and me had a small meeting of our own after that to discuss and plan LiveSTRONG Day. After that I drove back. Driving to Amsterdam is actuallty more than I can handle, so I had to stop twice on the way up and twice on the way down. Rode my bike for an hour afterwards and was totally exhausted after that. Made sure my LiveSTRONG event kit was ready for Sunday and went to bed. Sunday I rode 80 km for LiveSTRONG, so we could have a booth at the finish line. Took me three hours to complete the course and stood in the booth with my niece the rest of the day. All of that combined made it impossible for me to walk today and I had to get into that wheelchair this morning, whether I liked it or not (and I didn't). Needed to take my laptop into work and lots of papers for the first meeting of the day. I tried to figure out how to bring all that and lunch down to the car in one run. As I arrived at the meeting I was told it was relocated to another building. But as I got there I saw the doors where too small to get in without hurting my hands. To top it off we had to relocated half way through the meeting again.After I got back to my own office I got asked at least 4 times why I was in the chair and I explained. Everytime the next question was "is all that LiveSTRONG stuff worth all this"? I didn't have to think twice and said YES!!!
I got to meet extraordinary people during my voluntering shifts and hope my being there made their day a bit better. I told them, as I always do, the inspiring stories from my fellow LiveSTRONG Leaders and they help. That evening during my training ride I received message that a very nice man donated an amazing amount to my LSC, after donating to Blue Wonder and making an earlier donation to my Challenge as well. I never had the pleasure of meeting this kind soul but somehow the little I can do for LiveSTRONG makes him think this deserves encouragement. I am very grateful for his friendship. On saturday I had the pleasure of knowing the booth we will have at the passing of the Tour de France might make Lance proud when he passes it and knowing we wil reach a lot of people and tell them about the great job LiveSTRONG is doing is making me happy already. To top it off we met a great lady doing an amazing job and we might be doing some work together and I learned a lot again. Sunday we had at least 100 people visiting our booth and many of them donated to the cause. Not as much as fellow LiveSTRONG Leaders in the US make, but we always have to explain why the money also can go to a US charity so I'm proud of the donations we got. Besides that I have to admit I'm a bit proud I managed to do he 80 km ride within a reasonable amount of time (did miss my LiveSTRONG cycling outfit though). So YES, eventhough I had to be in the wheelchair today and probably will be in it tomorrow and only could do a 30 minute ride today "all that LiveSTRONG stuff is sure worth it"!