Giving Miles for Life
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Give the gift of flight to patients in need. Many people need life-saving treatments in different areas than their own, we help them get to where they need to be. By donating you will help people, like Muriel, get the treatments they need.
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Muriel’s Story
Muriel Arnevik was not only one of the kindest and most gracious human beings I have ever known, she was also the most positive.
Her grace under pressure and positive attitude in the face of lethal circumstances was amply illustrated in her 6 1/2 year battle with small-cell lymphoma. Through a transplant, endless barrages of chemotherapy, anemia, and a perpetually pessimistic prognosis, she held steady to a divine paradox of unyielding optimism and gracious resignation. My father said that she had no more than six quality days in those 6-1/2 years. No one ever heard a complaint or a self-pitying tone in those 78 agonizing months. It just wasn’t in her.
I hesitate to say that she lost her battle with cancer because it only succeeded in taking her body. Her courageous spirit lives on in all of us who knew her. I can still remember her doctors shaking their heads every time they saw her. She had lived a full 3-1/2 years beyond her prognosis.
Muriel’s treatments required that she fly at least four times a year to Rochester, Minnesota, home of the Mayo Clinic. One day as I was looking at my accumulated miles statement, I realized how easy it would be for me to play a small role in her battle by simply giving her the miles necessary for her clinic visits. Throughout the years of her treatment, she and my father told me time and again how grateful they were and how much it helped to relieve the economic stress that was already expanding because of the cost of treatment. We have all heard of the effects such stress has on the immune system and healing process.
People have much better prospects of recovering and surviving if they can mitigate the many stresses playing upon their system. I consider it to be God’s gift to have had the opportunity to offer the miles. Besides, with all the time I spend on the road accumulating miles, the last thing I want to do is use them. I knew I would never find a better use. Muriel would have never asked for such a gift. She was much too gracious. I had to insist she take them. There are many such Muriels in our world today fighting for their lives and absorbing the financial strain of getting to their doctors and clinics.
A word from Mitch Anthony
“I consider it to be God’s gift to have had the opportunity to offer the miles. Besides, with all the time I spend on the road accumulating miles, the last thing I want to do is use them. I knew I would never find a better use. Muriel would have never asked for such a gift. She was much too gracious. I had to insist she take them.
“There are many such Muriels in our world today fighting for their lives and absorbing the financial strain of getting to their doctors and clinics. This is what the Rxtra Mile cause is all about.”
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