What He Did on His Summer Vacation

In mid-June, Mark Junge from Cheyenne, Wyo., left on his summer vacation. Nothing unusual in that, except that on this trip, the 61-year-old is peddling his way across the country on a 3,400-mile bicycle trek — with his portable oxygen system.

Junge is traveling the historic Lincoln Highway, which runs through America’s heartland. He began his ride June 12 from San Francisco’s Lincoln Park, the highway’s western-most point, and plans to end up in New York City at the route’s eastern terminus in Times Square.

“The idea of making a transcontinental bike ride across America had been fermenting in my brain for at least the past decade,” Junge writes in a journal he is keeping from the road. Junge had been an avid cyclist all his life, but after being weakened by blood clots that formed in his lungs nearly two years ago, he thought he would have to give up his plans for such a journey.

According to Junge, the clots may have resulted from previous hip replacement or heart surgeries. “Regardless, the result was that I was disabled, and at first it was discouraging. It was hard to breathe during any form of exertion except sitting, and I had to use oxygen to sleep at night,” he says.

Nevertheless, Junge says, once his pulmonologist prescribed Coumadin (to prevent blood clotting) and portable liquid oxygen as therapy, “within a very short time it dawned on me that I did not have to give up my dreams, and that a bike trip really was not out of the question.”

Junge is traveling with Puritan Bennett’s Helios lightweight personal oxygen system. The company, a business unit of Mallinckrodt, part of Tyco Healthcare, is sponsoring his trip, which has been dubbed the Helios Freedom Tour.

While the company has a stake in the outcome of the tour, Junge says, “a major purpose [of the trip] is to encourage oxygen-dependent people to insist upon access to portable oxygen units and to educate and inform elected and appointed officials about the necessity for government support for the use of liquid oxygen.” Along the way, Junge hoped to meet with federal legislators in their home districts.

“Mark’s trip across the country will not only be a personal best for him but it will also help raise awareness for these systems so that more consumers can benefit from them,” says Randy Whitfield, president of Puritan Bennett. “The challenge is educating more physicians, patients and legislators about these systems.”

Literally along for the ride, Junge’s wife Ardath is making the trip with him driving the Freedom Tour van, which is equipped with an oxygen tank reservoir. The two communicate by cell phone or walkie-talkies with a 10-mile range. Junge’s bike is also fitted with an oxygen tank holder above its rear wheel and with a water reservoir to help with the suffocating summer heat.

Junge spent July 4th watching an Independence Day parade down the main street of Ely, Nev., before heading across the sizzling Bonneville Salt Flats, where temperatures on the asphalt can be in the 90s. By July 15, he had made it to Rock Springs, Utah, and, at press time, planned to complete his journey in early September.

“This trip is not only a personal goal but also an opportunity for me to demonstrate to other oxygen-dependent individuals that they, too, can stay active and independent,” Junge says.

For more information or to read Junge’s notes from the Lincoln Highway, visit www.heliosfreedomtour.com.