The sore and tired muscles are all worth it for Delta police Const. Kelly Seib.
Seib said she’s feeling an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment after a marathon swim last Thursday at North Delta’s Sungod Recreation Centre.
Seib swam 910 lengths of the pool (approximately 23.5 kilometres) over 12 hours in support of brain cancer treatment for Tashina Janus.
“It was an overwhelming experience in a positive way,” said Seib. “It was everything that I had hoped it to be and then some. I can’t put into words the support I received from their family, my members, the fire department members, two members from Vancouver Fire (and Rescue Services) who came and ran a barbecue.
“All of it combined together was just an amazing experience and will leave me with memories that will last a lifetime. It makes me so proud to be a part of not only my police department, but my community.”
Seib said the swim went pretty much as expected, although she admitted the last hour or so was the hardest part.
“There is a lot of mental training that goes into it and I was prepared, however, because I had some stomach issues and wasn’t able to get some of the proper nutrition in, at 6 p.m. with one hour to go, I hit that first wall,” she recalled. “The last 30 minutes was a physical drain where I felt like I was lifting barbells. I knew I had to take one last stroke at a time and that’s what pushed me through.”
The fundraiser brought in over $16,000. Coupled with more than $55,000 raised on a GoFundMe page (https://ca.gofundme.com/savetashinasbrain), the Janus family is well on the way to its fundraising goal of $100,000.
“It was amazing. The amount of support from the Delta Police Department, Delta Fire (Department), Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services – you couldn’t ask for a better group of people to come and support. Kelly just blew everyone out of the water. She was as strong starting as she was finishing,” said Tanisha’s sister Soraya.
“You sometimes go into these things hoping and you plan as much as you can, but at one point there were so many officers and firefighters on deck supporting Kelly I couldn’t count them all. Then there was more than 200 people there as well.”
Soraya said there are a few donors who were at the event who said they might want to do more, so the fundraising total might change in the days to come.
“My sister is very humbled as our whole family is by all of this. We are just so thankful for Kelly and everyone’s support,” she said.
At the age of 21, Tanisha was diagnosed with an astrocytoma and her oncologist recommended a consultation with a specialist in neuro-oncology at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. Her family is hoping she’ll receive special immunotherapy treatment there for her type of brain tumour, a treatment that is not currently available in Canada.
