Bicyclist retraces 1968 cross-country trek for cancer awareness

Andy Sninsky is living proof the human body can overcome adversity that may seem insurmountable.
Sninsky, 67, of Newport Beach, California, rode his bicycle through Morgan City Monday to raise awareness about multiple myeloma, a type of blood and bone cancer he was diagnosed with in 2008. Sninsky spent Sunday night at Lake End Park.
The visit to Morgan City brought back memories for Sninsky. Almost 48 years ago, Sninsky rode his bicycle with a friend 4,226 miles across the United States from Compton, California, to New York City and visited Morgan City along the way on July 20, 1968. The journey was “life-changing,” he said.
Sninsky remembers riding on many Louisiana roads made of crushed oyster shells back then. He had just started college when he began his cycling trip with the goal of encouraging physical fitness.
“I had never been down south in my life, and I wanted to see an alligator,” Sninsky said.
After his cancer diagnosis in 2008, doctors gave Sninsky 40 months to live. He has been in remission since 2010. That’s the same year he began retracing the route he rode his bicycle over four decades earlier.
March is Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month, and for the past six years, each March, he has ridden one section of the trip he did as a 19- and 20-year-old. This March, he decided to ride the 500-mile stretch from Houston to New Orleans. He began March 9 and plans to finish Friday.
Sninsky was fortunate to get across the Sabine River on an Amtrak train just before authorities shut the bridge down due to flooding, he said.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the bone marrow plasma cells, according to the International Myeloma Foundation website. Myeloma is often slow-moving, but can sometimes be much more aggressive, the website says.
Myeloma is called “multiple” because there are frequently multiple patches or areas in bone where it grows. Myeloma can appear as a tumor or an area of bone loss, the website says.
There is no cure for myeloma, but it is a very treatable disease. And many patients go on to lead full and productive lives for years, even decades, after diagnosis, according to the website.
The cancer “attacks long bones” and caused severe deterioration of Sninsky’s spine, he said. However, Sninsky doesn’t experience any pain today associated with the bone loss.
He went through 15 rounds of radiation, eight months of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant in April 2009.
Sninsky almost gave up hope in 2008 because he was in excruciating pain and had to use a walker.
He wants people to know there’s a path forward after a cancer diagnosis, but it “takes some real guts to keep fighting,” he said.
Sninsky attributes his recovery to the “miracle of modern medicine” and the “love of God.”
“I’ve had a pretty good battle. It hasn’t been easy. And these bikes aren’t easy, either, but they’re fun. And there was nothing about my treatment that was fun,” Sninsky said.
Sninsky, now retired, made a career as an adventurer organizing white water rafting trips and kayak tours all over the world. He spent time in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Slovakia and Hungary. He was still guiding kayak tours when he was diagnosed, but the cancer “stopped everything,” he said.
“It’s very rough treatment. When you come out the other side, you’re either in a box or you made it. I made it, and I want to let other people know they can make it, too,” Sninsky said.
He only has one more section of his cross-country trip left to do, the 600 miles from the Arizona western border to El Paso, Texas.
Sninsky also received medical treatment in Europe and will travel there May 26 to ride from Zurich, Switzerland, to Budapest, Hungary. He will visit nine countries along the way and give cancer talks.
Sninsky has raised over $15,000 through his bicycle trips with all of the money going to research toward finding a cure, he said.
To learn more about multiple myeloma, Sninsky’s journey or to donate to the International Myeloma Foundation, visit Sninsky’s page on the foundation website at https://online.myeloma.org/netcommunity/MemberFundraiserBicycleMojave.