I lost my wife Jane to NET cancer in 2010. We lost her Dad to prostate cancer five years later. We lost our friend John to glioblastoma the year after that. I held all their hands at the end.
But I’ve been dealing with cancer all my life. I lost an uncle to spinal cancer in my teens. I watched a close friend gouge deep scratches in the arms of his maple chair as he wrestled with the pain of lung cancer. I walked a friend to the end of her battle with triple-negative breast cancer.
Both my sister and sister-in-law, though, are long-term breast cancer survivors—alive today because of breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of their particular forms of the disease, made because of basic research funded, not by government, but through private donations.
And that’s the other reason I walk—to fund the basic research that leads to better diagnostics and better treatments. Research our team has helped fund has led to a new blood test that detects many cancers in their infancy—when they are far easier to cure. That test is currently being evaluated by at least one insurance company for inclusion in every annual physical.
We’ve also helped fund research that has led to new treatments for NET cancer—the second most prevalent form of gastrointestinal cancer in the US—second only to colon cancer. Despite that fact, NET is likely a cancer you’ve never heard of.
Please donate today. Better still, join our team and come walk with us.
We walk for those who can’t—until they can.
