“This isn’t about someday finding a cure,” stated Kerry Olson of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. “It’s about finding a cure today.” Your knucklehead scribe has been getting quite an indoctrination into LLS’s good works since being nominated for its “Man of the Year” contest. This annual event pits passionate fundraisers against one another. May the best man, when it comes to raising money, win!
Nobody but cancer loses from the nationwide campaign. Last year it raised almost $39 million for blood cancer research. The emerging laboratory and clinical work (benches to bedsides) is exciting stuff. It has experts predicting the dreaded disease might be curable in the next 20-30 years. Can you imagine? In our lifetime, a world without cancer?
Excellent research being conducted on blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma is a major reason we’re seeing rapid advancements in effective treatments for ALL cancers. One startling statistic? 40% of new cancer drugs coming on the market have their origins in blood cancer research. It makes sense considering blood flows to every nook and cranny of our bodies. If research creates drugs to slow down blood cancers, most, if not all, cancers are endangered. “It’s an exciting time in fighting cancer,” says Rocky Mountain LLS dynamic Executive Director Rebecca Russell. In addition, research and treatment benefits are spilling over to other worldwide health challenges like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and beyond.
But too many are still dying. There are mountains to climb. One form of blood cancer, Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), has baffled those searching for answers. Treatment has changed little in four decades. At a recent gathering, I learned the critical funding role agencies like LLS provide for continued research. “Drug companies don’t have the patience to fund work in this area,” admitted a doctor/researcher. The passionate man works at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus and receives LLS support. “These breakthroughs don’t happen overnight.”
The breakthroughs are paying off. Cancers that just a few years ago were considered terminal are succumbing without the usual, and debilitating, bombardment of radiation, chemotherapy and/or surgery. More folks are surviving and thriving!
Team Mark Mac’s campaign fundraising goal is $150,000. If you’re interested in helping, let me know. If we raise that amount, or more, the team wins two tickets to next year’s world cancer research symposium. We’ll get to hang with those leading the charge against this fearsome, but now, vulnerable foe. Olson joked, “You’ll get to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” The horses are galloping right now. At breakneck speed research stallions are unlocking once hidden clues necessary for cancer’s demise. It speaks to the power of perseverance.
Effectively dealing with the challenges of life, whether cancer or beyond. They arrive when least desired and make a mess of things. Don’t surrender. Immunotherapy replacing chemotherapy. Our bodies, not poison, conquering cancer.
New discoveries leading to a shift in thinking and strategies leading to healthy outcomes. Could it be, far beyond fighting cancer, what we need to prevail against what ails? Not some day, but today?
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