{"id":9516,"date":"2015-04-07T12:09:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T18:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=9516"},"modified":"2015-04-07T12:09:47","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T18:09:47","slug":"peak-profile-jon-wilson-05","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2015\/04\/peak-profile-jon-wilson-05\/","title":{"rendered":"Peak Profile: Jon Wilson \u201905"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jon<\/a>

Jon Wilson ’05<\/p><\/div>\n

W<\/span>hen Jon Wilson arrives at Homecoming this fall for his 10th reunion \u2014 which he plans to do with wife Amy Salm Wilson \u201905<\/b> by his side \u2014 he, like many of his classmates, will be in a very different state of mind than he was at graduation.<\/p>\n

One year after graduation, Jon was living on Cape Cod, working for a politician and doing carpentry on the side with his brother. On a job site one day he felt\u00a0a tightness in his left leg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was running at the time, too,\u201d he said, \u201cand I thought I pulled a muscle so\u00a0I went to the doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The diagnosis: a pulled muscle.<\/p>\n

A month passed. His leg didn\u2019t feel better so he returned to the doctor, who gave him the same diagnosis, but sent him on to a sports orthopedist.<\/p>\n

The \u201cpulled muscle\u201d turned out to be epithelioid sarcoma, a rare form of soft\u00a0tissue cancer typically found in young adults, and it had spread throughout his\u00a0leg. Treatment options are limited due to the cancer\u2019s rarity, so doctors\u00a0recommended amputation.<\/p>\n

After surgery, cancer was still showing up \u201con the margins,\u201d Jon said, so doctors put him on Nexavar, a drug typically used for liver or kidney cancer, to see if it might help. He would be on the drug for at least a year, and the doctors gave him one warning: \u201cDon\u2019t try to get pregnant on this, because we don\u2019t know what it does to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the week before Jon took his first dose, he and Amy conceived their first child. \u201c[It] was miraculous to us, and it was pretty special,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

What also was special was support from friends. Soon after the amputation, Jon wanted to try riding a bike.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was something that was really important for me, to stay active, and to instill some confidence. After losing your leg, your whole self-image changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, between ongoing treatment and being out of work for awhile,\u00a0Jon said they took a financial hit, and he didn\u2019t have much disposable income
\nfor biking equipment. Friends pitched in and purchased an adaptive road bike for him.<\/p>\n

It was a step that would not only kick off a serious love of adventure sports \u2014 attending a whitewater kayaking program for cancer survivors, participating in 100-mile bike rides,\u00a0 and, with help from a friend\u2019s mom, learning to ski \u2014 but one that also opened his eyes to a broader issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI figured there was a need for cancer survivors \u2014 a financial need to get adaptive sports equipment and to try to challenge themselves in the hopes of building confidence through an active lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n

About five years ago he started the AKP Foundation \u2014 named for his mantra, \u201cAlways Keep Pedaling,\u201d which he\u2019s been president of until just recently, when
\na series of incidents gave him pause.<\/p>\n

Last June, Jon broke his collarbone while mountain biking. \u201cHaving one leg and\u00a0a broken collarbone, it\u2019s a bit inconvenient,\u201d he said, \u201cbut that was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then a month later, he was road biking and got hit by a car. \u201cThat guy just wasn\u2019t paying attention. He T-boned me, split my bike in two. It was pretty scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jon said although he was in bad shape for several months, neither accident left him with long-term issues. But they were very much a wake-up call.<\/p>\n

As a full-time high school social studies teacher at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont, which he attended as a student, plus being a grad student, husband,\u00a0 father to two daughters, cancer survivor, and AKP president, Jon realized it was time to focus on his health, family, and teaching career, which he said is his No. 1 passion.<\/p>\n

So a few months ago he stepped down from running AKP (though he still holds an advisory role), and is learning to look at life differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look back at the time of my treatment and everything not with scorn or regret, but with a quasi-fondness, just for the perspective I gained and the intensity of emotion. Learning the habit of living in the present.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I could go back in time and change things around, I would not. I would still choose this course of life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Jon Wilson arrives at Homecoming this fall for his 10th reunion \u2014 which he plans to do with wife Amy Salm Wilson \u201905 by his side \u2014 he, like many of his classmates, will be in a very different state of mind than he was at graduation. One year after graduation, Jon was living…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-9516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2015","tag-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9516"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9523,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions\/9523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}