Sickler envisions the finish line and thinks about how much his legs will hurt at the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it. I can\u2019t wait,\u201d said the 31-year-old Jacksonville resident who works as a Trulieve project manager for the dispensary<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sickler, who grew up in Tallahassee, was heading into his senior year of high school when the wrestler and soccer player underwent a routine annual physical. The blood test was off, a red flag that something was wrong. His white blood cell count came back 10 times normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was more of a surreal experience,\u201d Sickler said as he was getting ready to navigate college and not expecting to deal with cancer as an athletic young man. \u201cThe first question I asked the doctor was, \u2018Am I going to die? \u2026 That was the only question I asked, too. He was like, \u2018No, of course not. You\u2019re going to be fine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The cancer had been caught early, so Sickler didn\u2019t need formal chemotherapy or radiation. He took eight pills a day that \u201ckilled cells indiscriminately,\u201d ravaging his body for a few months. He threw up 10 to 20 times a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI got really good at driving my stick shift Jeep and throwing up at the same time,\u201d Sickler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He went into remission. The cancer seemed behind him.<\/p>\n Through it all, Sickler stayed upbeat. He went to musical festivals and told himself YOLO. You Only Live Once.<\/p>\n But in the cruelty of life, cancer ran in his family \u2014 although it wasn\u2019t genetic, each person\u2019s circumstances were unconnected.<\/p>\n Sickler\u2019s father, a beloved public school teacher, died in 2014 of what turned out to be pancreatic cancer. Sicker\u2019s mother, a stay-at-home mom, died in 2021 of kidney cancer.<\/p>\n Sickler found his peace in running.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can drown out the chaos that is the world around you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He had picked up running in his early 20s. He hated lifting weights and he was skinny, so it came naturally to him. He liked running best in the quiet of the woods, away from any concrete.<\/p>\n And Sickler liked testing his mental boundaries. How far could he push himself? Another major challenge was coming.<\/p>\n Sickler got sick after a fishing trip in 2024 and landed in urgent care with a fever that wouldn\u2019t break.\u00a0He was fighting for his life and was flown to the\u00a0Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center,<\/a> where he spent 30 days in the hospital.<\/p>\n The cancer was back.<\/p>\n He underwent chemotherapy and had a bone marrow transplant in October 2024.<\/p>\n He spent months going through intensive entreatment and immunocompromised, isolating from others. For four months, he had a chest catheter. Running was undoubtedly out of the question. Taking a shower alone was a physical feat.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to basically put Saran Wrap over my body to take a shower. It wasn\u2019t fun,\u201d Sickler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, doctors told him the cancer was undetectable in February.<\/p>\n \u201cI basically just watched football for 12 hours a day. That\u2019s not really my MO. I\u2019m a pretty active person,\u201d Sickler said. \u201cThe moment they ripped out that chest catheter out of my chest, I pretty much immediately tried to get out there and start going at it.\u201d<\/p>\n He started slowly. Walking. Then jogging. Then he kept going.<\/p>\n Since February, he has run 1,000 miles, leading up to Saturday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n He counts his blessings.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t articulate how thankful and appreciative and blessed I feel,\u201d Sickler said.<\/p>\n The positivity and the drive set him apart, his supporters say.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether in his professional career here at Trulieve or his personal life, Michael doesn\u2019t recognize the meaning of the word quit,\u201d said Kyle Landrum<\/a>, Trulieve\u2019s<\/a> Chief Production Officer. \u201cHe serves as a tremendous example of what persistence looks like when faced with challenges. He just inspires people to be better and push through any obstacles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In all the chaos, running brought peace for Michael Sickler, a two-time cancer survivor who lost his parents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1158,116,118,117,27481,27482,6342,27483,27484,27485],"class_list":["post-41474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-cancer","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-kyle-landrum","tag-michael-sickler","tag-running","tag-trulieve","tag-ultra-marathons","tag-wild-florida-50k"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Luis-Viera-Ads-728x90-px.jpg\")
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