Photo provided
Toby Stigdon, organizer of Kayaking for Cancer, shown in his kayak.
Submitted photo
More than four years ago, Toby Stigdon was told he was going to die from cancer. Just not yet.
Originally informed he had a year to live due to a diagnosis of poorly differentiated thyroid cancer in May of 2021, the Columbus man with Seymour roots set in motion a fundraising plan to help others by Kayaking for Cancer, mostly on the White River.
Enlisting other paddlers, Stigdon and a core group of partners have raised about $64,000 for the Schneck Medical Foundation in Seymour and the Don Dana Myers Cancer Center. Money is distributed to others whose insurance doesn’t cover all of their needs as they battle the disease. None of the money is kept by Stigdon.
Along the way, Stigdon, 45, who is married with two children and works teaching youngsters at a Montessori School in Columbus, has had his health re-evaluated. The Seymour High graduate is still living under the shadow of a terminal diagnosis, but the one-year-to-live analysis has gone by the wayside, doctors apologizing for the particularly gloomy prognosis, he said.
“When you hear ‘terminal,’ you think there’s not much time,” he said. “Four years later, I’m still here.”
He is still going. Stigdon can no longer undertake paddling adventures hundreds of miles long, but he can still paddle and for September he has organized a fourth Kayaking for Cancer trip to raise money for Schneck’s program.
“I can’t do it anymore,” Stigdon said of paddling and camping for a week at a time. He is not as strong as he was and coping with the side effects of medication has affected his stamina.
Some of his tumors have shrunk, but his energy level is lower when it comes to testing himself physically.
The goal last year was to paddle to the Ohio River and Stigdon and friends had to stop short. So, Sept. 19 to 21, they plan to paddle from Indiana’s New Harmonie State Park some 50 miles to the Ohio River. Stopping shy of the planned end point, partially because of steady high winds and capsizing, galled Stigdon.
“I was mad,” he said of now picking up where the team paused. “We’re finishing what we thought out. That’s what it is — unfinished business.”
That will be followed by new business. On Sept. 27, the group will throw a party in Seymour at Brooklyn Pizza and Harmony Park with music by Robert Holbrook, to celebrate people who are tackling cancer.
“Come be a part of it,” Stigdon said, “the ones who are in the fight.”
Then comes Part II of this fall. On Oct. 24, another party will be held at Hog Molly Brewing Company in Columbus and on Oct. 25-26, the kayakers are scheduled to paddle 50 miles on the White River from downtown Columbus to Brownstown. Friend Greg Foley, who has been a part of the kayaking challenges from the start, and cousin B.J. Strong, another regular are on the roster for departures again.
Stigdon tries to paddle some miles on weekends with Foley to maintain some type of shape, but admits long days of paddling are now out for him.
Although Stigdon’s core group of teammates should be along on that Columbus-Brownstown leg, Kayaking for Cancer is welcoming participation from anyone who wants to go. After all, the theme of the paddles always has been “Nobody paddles alone.”
“I’m hoping to get more people,” Stigdon said. “That’s what I really want to grow it into.”
