uh good afternoon welcome i'm proud to be here today at the medical college uh to engage in a ceremony that i think has real merit sergeant racklaw is a member of this police department someone of whom we're very proud for a variety of reasons but one is because these embodies one of our core principles and one of our core principles is the idea of courage normally we think of encourage from a police officer in terms of what he does under the stress of the job in the street but courage can be manifested many different ways sergeant racklaw has been suffering for some time from abdominal cancer but he has managed to not only face this life challenge courageously but he's been able to put others ahead of himself and despite the fact that he has suffered from and had invasive surgery to deal with this issue and is hopeful for the future he's decided to think of other people who might benefit from research into the condition that he's had to deal with and so with the assistance of the milwaukee police department endurance club a group of police athletes who participate in many charity runs and events he organized a fundraiser for the medical college to fund research into his medical condition and because of their successful work we're here today to make a presentation on behalf of the milwaukee police department endurance club we're very proud of sergeant racklaw we're very proud of the officers who made this event a reality and participated in it and we're profoundly grateful to the medical professionals at the college here at freighter who have worked so selflessly and effectively to help sergeant racklaw meet the challenges of this very difficult condition so i'm going to turn it over to sergeant racklaw now sarge oops there you go thank you chief you bet good evening everyone last february i was diagnosed with pseudomixoma carcinoma and what that is is stage four uh abdominal cancer and i underwent a surgery at another medical facility and not much was known about the illness in itself i was transferred to freighter and was taken on by the care of dr triaga and the many other doctors that are out here and began to give me an understanding of the illness that i had something that has been deemed incurable and affects just a thousand people in the united states uh it has um only a 10 survival rate we knew through my diagnosis that there could be some level of success and members of the milwaukee police department held a christmas party for my family last february we were able to take those funds and transfer them over and begin the foundation for the first of its kind abdominal cancer research fund with the medical college of wisconsin from there i went into a very invasive 11 hour surgery on july the 9th which is called high pet chemotherapy and i can let the doctor speak to that surgery has been fairly successful i still have illness within my body but the hope is that through the funds that have been raised awareness and hope can be provided to others and within my lifetime a cure can be found it was through the good work of the many members of the milwaukee police department that made this happen you have to understand to raise ten thousand dollars is not an easy task especially when you don't have corporate sponsors this is like i said the first of its kind fund for this market and it was difficult but it took a lot of work and through the support of the police officers department many friends family strangers community involvement community partners we were able to make this happen today and and tell of the success and hope this success leads to the beginning of a foundation towards a cure for this cancer so that many others are treated successfully and live long prosperous lives which i intend to do so we work for the police department it might not be prosperous we can make it long prosperous in terms of love with family i do have a two-year-old son no one a five-year-old daughter isabella and i'm standing here today through the the good work of the doctors that are surrounded us today and also the the care and the love that's been provided by my wife angela i feel great i do i ran in the race um 31 minutes for the 5k and it was just less than three months being off the operating table there's a long road ahead but um i'm in good hands i'm surrounded by great people that are work towards seeing that i'm successful with this along with my family there's no way my family and i could have gotten through this experience without the support of the brothers and sisters on my police department i've had two surgeries back to back within less than five months we're talking very very invasive surgeries where the entire abdominal cavity is actually opened and there's tasks at the house that police officers made sure my snow was shoveled dinners were made phone calls were taken more phone calls text messages a lot of a lot of support has gone into my family and and that's what i attribute the success to all right this time yes absolutely uh my surgeon dr kieran taraga well thank you sebastian uh thank you dr uh thank you chief lynn um you know i wanted to thank both the chief for coming here um and the police endurance club for their generosity and for the uh for the money that they've raised for us um through the sebastian reckle abdominal cancer fund you know today we stand where a man actually dove from the edge of uh edge of the sky but we still battle with cancer every single day we see patients that we're able to help and some patients that we're not and we're hoping that through these funds and with partnerships with remarkable individuals such as sebastian and the chief and the police endurance club that were able to provide hope for the patient of today and a possible cure for the patient of tomorrow we hope to develop better ways of treating detecting and preventing growth of this cancer and especially when it spreads through the entire body this becomes an extremely difficult challenge for us but sebastian has been a true inspiration to me my partner sam pappas ben george and clark gambling and he has shown us that the human spirit is much more powerful than any cancer we have ever seen we thank you not just for your generosity and courage but for providing us and everyone at the froedtert in the medical college of wisconsin cancer center a continued reason to fight harder a reason to innovate and a reason to work tirelessly to fight against this cancer you