CYCLIST TAKES SEXUAL ABUSE CRUSADE ACROSS U.S.

At age 7, Ann McCarron contracted rheumatic fever and Saint Vitus' dance, a disease that paralyzed her left side. Her parents took her to a hospital, where she met a pediatrician who treated her and who sexually abused her for the next five years.

Today, the 35-year-old McCarron views herself not as a victim of sexual abuse but as a victor who has overcome it by "telling a story I never thought I would tell a single person."

McCarron is bicycling the 3,900 miles from San Diego to her home in Worcester Mass., to focus attention on child sexual abuse and to raise money for anti-abuse programs. She stopped in Cape Girardeau Monday, more than 2,000 miles along on her journey.

Bike Across America also is McCarron's attempt to continue the healing process that began in therapy after she reached adulthood. Talking in public about being sexually abused still rakes her emotions.

The doctor threatened that they'd both be sent to jail if she told anyone. "I was scared silent," she says.

Her abilities in sports bolstered her confidence and self-esteem through her teen years, she says, but there was an episode of drinking a whole bottle of vodka in junior high school, and in adulthood she "started to head down some dark roads."

She had severe migraine headaches, shut down her feelings, and her relationships were affected.

Through therapy, she gradually worked through the issues these behaviors were only symptoms of. "It didn't just happen," she says. "It took a long time."

McCarron hopes her own story and her trip across America encourage children who have been abused to talk.

"I want to get them to tell now instead of when they are an adult," she said.

McCarron likes challenges. She ran in the Boston Marathon even though she isn't a runner. And she didn't even own a bicycle before she dreamed up Bike Across America.

Bike Across America is sponsored by Assumption College in Worcester, where McCarron is the recreational sports director.

She set out on July 28 and has crossed deserts in California and Arizona and has climbed many mountains, averaging 70 to 100 miles a day.

Her support team follows behind in a van donated by the Coca-Cola Co. The members of the team are flown out to complete different legs. On this one the team includes an old family friend, Jim Phelan, and his wife, Tracy. At other times, McCarron's three brothers and her parents will be aboard.

Like most parents, McCarron's warned her to beware of strangers, but 85 percent of abused children are abused by someone they know.

"Abuse affects everyone involved," she says. "I see the pain my parents feel because they couldn't protect me."

She wears a pin with a picture of Jeffrey Curley, a 10-year-old Boston boy who was murdered and sexually abused. The boy's father came to see McCarron before she left on her journey. A 72-year-old woman came to San Diego to see her off and tell her about a daughter who was sexually abused and killed herself.

McCarron hired a private detective to find the pediatrician. The man had left the country, leaving behind many other accusations of sexual abuse.

But she saw him again in a dream. In the dream, she and her best friend and a private investigator climbed a mountain in Canada where they encountered the pediatrician in a house. He was sitting in a rocking chair.

The pediatrician arose and squatted behind the chair, "his face peering shamefully through the bars."

McCarron woke up then but the dream gave her the feeling of having confronted her abuser.

"That inspired me to have a voice myself and also to encourage others to have a voice," she says.

McCarron's journal is being fed into a Web site nightly so people can check her progress.

The e-mail address is www.assumption.edu

Today a police escort will usher Bike Across America into Murphysboro, Ill., where she will conduct a press conference. She was invited by the mayor after he heard about her mission. She will finish her ride amid much fanfare at the college in Worcester.

"When I reach home Sept. 15, I'm going to be pretty strong," she says, a smile filling her face.

"... I've climbed many mountains."