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marrow transplant, ultimately from older brother Gordon Brock, who turned out to be a perfect match. There were long days in isolation waiting to see if Day Zero — the first day of such a transplant (his was Dec. 17, 2004) — then followed by Day 1, was really the start of a new life where each day is counted until the milestone five-year mark consid- ered to be a full recovery. His carbon-fibre trekking bike, ordered a month before he fell sick and delivered two days after he was first hospitalized, became a symbol of determination and hope. It was installed in his hospital room along with a special wheeler to turn it into a stationary bike. "I remember waking up at night and all the lights were off except the lights of the chemo pump and I could hear the poison being pumped into my veins and I looked at that bike and said, 'I am going to pedal you one day.' "All we control is how we react," Brock says now. "I believe that if you don't control events, the events will control you. And therefore I believe that you really need to act, you can't react. I made sure every day in the hospital I would get up, I would get dressed, I would get shaved." It took two years to fully recover from the bone marrow transplant. At first he could only work 25 per cent of the time, the next year 50, and then finally the BCE case, on which he worked full time. Brock channelled the same grit and pugnacity that has marked his legal career and his fight against leukemia into the European bicycling trip. He was already an avid outdoor enthu- siast and adventurer before he was diagnosed, cycling often and travelling at least for one full week each year with a group of friends to kayak in some faraway destination. After a ceremonial dip of his foot in the ocean at Saint- Nazaire, France, it was only smooth sailing. The weather was lovely and Brock was joined by hematologists Denis Claude Roy and Jean Roy, two of the doctors who had worked to save his life. They were part of a group of nine people, including his wife, lawyer Maryse Bertrand, general counsel for CBC/Radio- Canada, who accompanied him on part of the journey through France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Hungary. Then rain — and mud — set in as Brock and his compan- ion cyclists worked to meet their goal of pedalling about 80 kilometres each day. "I underestimated the amount of cumulative fatigue that would build up if I didn't take rest days," says Brock. Then the hills between Switzerland and Germany came, bringing another endurance challenge. "I remem- ber saying to myself, 'If I get off this bike, how am I going to get back on and start again?' So I said to myself, 'I am not going to stop, I am just going to keep pedal- ling,' and I pedalled and pedalled and pedalled." ntitled-4 1 That challenge was followed by a health scare in Budapest, when he noticed one of his feet was red and splotchy. Two days of forced rest and a treatment of antibiotics for a staph infection enabled him to continue to the final leg of his jour- ney: visiting the Hungarian village of Tolcsva, from where his maternal grandparents immigrated to Canada in 1924. Suddenly Brock's travel tale is interrupted as a litigator he knows — "he crushed me so bad when I was young and impres- sionable" — comes up to the table at Chez Nick Restaurant, the Montreal eatery where lawyers often gather for breakfast. "You are my idol," the lawyer tells Brock. When the lawyer leaves, Brock says, "I don't think I am an idol. "Some people are surprised that I was able to take the time off to do something like this and they say to me, 'I could never take six weeks off to do something like that.' I say to them, 'What if you were diagnosed with cancer tomorrow?' "What got me through this was the idea that this was my chance at survival and I had to do it. This wasn't a choice. Now I am back at work and not a day passes that I am not pro- foundly thankful to be alive. I want to continue to try and make my life count for something and I want to continue to count professionally." www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com SEPTEMBER 2010 13 2/10/10 10:02:59 AM