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In the past four years, Mark Junge's forest green Trek 520 bicycle has taken him 7,200 miles across the U.S., from coast to coast and border to border.
It's a remarkable feat for anyone born during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, but this 65-year-old historian must leap another hurdle: He is oxygen-dependent.
By cycling cross-country with his portable oxygen concentrator, Junge hopes to get a message across to millions of Americans with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other lung diseases.
"I'm trying like heck to get people to recognize that they can do things. They can be independent. They can live their lives, and they can live their dreams," said Junge, who has been on four long-distance rides since being diagnosed in 2002 with blood clots in his lungs.
The former college baseball player describes himself as a lifelong fitness devotee, whose exercise regimen included jogging, bowling, swimming, and playing ping pong. He suffered depression shortly after going on oxygen when the reality sunk in that he would need to slow down.
But Junge didn't stay away from the YMCA's gym long. A few months after going on oxygen, he decided to get back into an exercise routine. By lifting weights, Junge also lifted himself out of depression. "I started making plans with my life. I started getting ambitious again. The old vitality seemed to return," he said.
Among those ambitions was pursuing his longtime dream of cycling across the U.S. "I figured now is the time because time is running short," Junge said.
In planning his 2004 cross-country journey, Junge, who resides in Cheyenne, Wyo., and formerly served as a deputy state historic preservation officer, decided to follow the Lincoln Highway, the nation's first transcontinental highway created in 1913. The highway runs from San Francisco to the heart of New York City: Times Square.
Junge's wife, Ardath, drove a support vehicle with clothes, water, food, an oxygen reservoir, and batteries. Junge battled the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Appalachians with a 3.5-pound portable liquid oxygen system strapped to his waist.
"That's when I found out that with enough oxygen, I could overcome anything," Junge said. In his later rides, Junge rode with a 25-pound oxygen concentrator and batteries strapped to his bike.
When Junge arrived in New York, he followed the tradition of cross-country cyclists by pouring a bottle of water from the Pacific Ocean into the Atlantic and dipping his front tire in the water. (He dipped his rear tire in the Pacific before embarking on the ride.)
Junge said his other rides from New York to Cape Spear, Newfoundland; San Francisco to Vancouver; and San Francisco to Tijuana, Mexico; have put him in the spotlight long enough to speak publicly about the importance of portable oxygen. He has given speeches at Medtrade and in front of local chapters of the American Lung Association. Oxygen users also write to him regularly, praising Junge for inspiring them to exercise or asking questions about portable oxygen.
Junge passionately advocates for the U.S. government to recognize the value of portable oxygen on patients' quality of life. As a Medicare beneficiary, Junge said the coverage system doesn't encourage oxygen-dependent patients. For example, every year his physician must confirm that he still qualifies for oxygen despite the fact that his condition will never change.
"It all goes back to the market economy and Congress. By not encouraging oxygen suppliers to assist oxygen-dependent people to be portable and productive, Congress has condemned a large number of people to sedentary lives," Junge said.
Junge has captured his trip with photographs, but it's the people he has met during his journeys that are etched in his mind. During a stop in Truckee, Calif., he was in line at the local library to use their Internet. A preteen boy stared at Junge's nasal cannula.
"It's oxygen," Junge told the boy.
Without a blink, the boy responded, "We all need oxygen."
"That's one of the most profound things I've ever heard," Junge said. "The kid was saying, 'You're still alive. We all need oxygen. So what?'"
Lauren Meade is assistant editor at ADVANCE. She can be reached at lmeade@advanceweb.com.
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