What a Way to Start Lung Cancer Awareness Month

-


November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, but I hadn’t thought about how I would participate as a lung cancer survivor until late last week.  As it turned out, I had a great weekend that helped me kick off the month.
On Friday, I had meetings in Boston, so I made plans to also have lunch with Janet Freeman-Daily, who was in Boston for the Partners Connected Health Symposium. Janet is a well-known lung cancer advocate who spends her time “supporting others in online forums, raising awareness (through writing, blogging and public speaking), collaborating with lung cancer nonprofits and researchers, and participating in a clinical trial. I tweet as @JFreemanDaily and share moderator duties for Lung Cancer Social Media (#LCSM) tweetchats on Thursdays at 8 PM ET.” What an honor to meet and spend time with Janet, and share our lung cancer journeys. She is so committed to education and advocacy!

On Saturday, I had the privilege of joining Chris Draft and Linnea Duff at the Boston College football game. Chris invited me and Linnea to be part of his Survivor at every stadium campaign, so we met for breakfast, and had field passes to mingle on the field at Alumni Stadium. Chris was an amazing host, and inspired me with his vision for making lung cancer personal by bringing survivors to the forefront. He is truly “all about relationships”. Linnea’s “purpose in recounting her experiences is two-fold:  to offer hope and to provide a window into the life of someone living with terminal lung cancer.” And it turns out that Linnea and I have so many things in common in our cancer journey.  We both had surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital performed by Dr. Doug Mathisen (both lower left lobe), her oncologist is Dr. Alice Shaw (whom I know because NFCR supports her research), and we are both friends with Anne Deconinck, Executive Director at the Koch Institute at MIT. I truly enjoyed spending the day with Chris and Linnea!
Finally, on Sunday night I had dinner with Brenda Frese, head women’s basketball coach at the University of Maryland, her husband Mark Thomas, and Dr. Curt Civin and his wife Nancy. Curt is an accomplished cancer researcher at the University of Maryland, and NFCR has supported his research for over 20 years. Brenda and Curt are both committed to cancer research, and know of my lung cancer experience. It was a beautiful night and perfect ending to a great weekend. It was also November 1st, so it marked the beginning of lung cancer awareness month. It all came together kind of last minute, but I know it was meant to be. I believe that these are lifetime friendships, and for those who know me, it’s about relationships.  It was a great weekend. #LCAM15 #LCSM

Please join my personal community at https://www.carii.com/#/NationalFoundationforCancerResearch/stream

Popular posts from this blog

A Bowl of Gratitude

-
Image
I was introduced recently to Lynne Sarnoff-Christensen by her cousin, and my friend Jeffrey Cohen. You see, she makes pottery and well, more specifically she make “bowls of gratitude”. So of course, Jeffrey knew that I would hit it off with Lynne because he knows I live a life full of gratitude. Another friend, Keith Spiro said I just had to buy a bowl – so I did. The idea is to put notes in the bowl about things you are grateful for. So it’s my new thing. I’ve long been a fan of Shawn Achor and I’ve gotten into the habit of writing down things that I am grateful for. So this bowl of gratitude will be where I put my notes. And I will encourage my family to also add their notes to the bowl. We have a tradition on Thanksgiving to go around the table before we dig in to our meal, to share what we are thankful for. We shouldn’t just do this at Thanksgiving! When I called Lynne, she explained her philosophy and I get it: “You didn’t get from there to here without people believ...
Read more

The Power of Community: The White Ribbon Project

-
Image
The Greek meaning of evangelist is "bringing the good news." It's why I call my podcast the Research Evangelist Podcast. I love to share stories about people in life sciences who are doing amazing work to advance cancer research. And it's why The White Ribbon Project has captured my attention. The White Ribbon Project is a grassroots movement of lung cancer patients, advocates, clinicians, researchers friends and families with a mission to change the public perception of lung cancer by spreading awareness that anyone with lungs can get lung cancer. No one deserves lung cancer whether you smoked or not. But lung cancer is not just a smokers disease, as more and more people are getting lung cancer with no smoking history. The White Ribbon Project is proving that the power of a community that cares can be unleashed by individuals who wanted to make a difference - people that didn't set out to start a movement. It's because their story is so sincere and authentic...
Read more

Time to Move Beyond the Ribbons?

-
This past week, I had the pleasure of meeting Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and Harvard Medical School Professor of Genetics, Dr. Fred Alt. They were both in Washington, DC for the presentation of the 2015 NFCR Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research, which was awarded to Dr. Alt and keynoted by Sen. Markey.   The common theme I heard from both of these distinguished leaders was captured in a Huffington Post article written by Sam Stein , who attended the event . Stein succinctly wrote that “U.S. Science has never been more imperiled”. He noted that the lack of funding for basic scientific research not only prevents new discoveries, but it also means that we are losing promising scientists whose work can’t get funded.    10 years ago, nearly a third of qualified research was funded by NIH.   Now that number is only 14% (actually even lower for oncology, near 9%).   As Sen. Markey said, “sadly, support for scientific research in our countr...
Read more