I got a note from a former student earlier tonight. Today she is a neurologist at a hospital in the US. She has been reading about the work we are trying to do on neuroendocrine cancer and carcinoid syndrome. Today she encountered the disease in a patient. The story she told me reduced me to tears. The patient’s cancer has spread from the original site.

It brought back Jane’s last months all over again. It brought back for me how little we know about the disease, how few weapons we have to even slow it down, how little money we spend on trying to find a cure each year.

We probably spent as much on treating Jane in the last four months of her life as we spent doing research on the disease all of last year.

As of tonight, friends of Walking with Jane have raised $3830 in support of my Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk this Sunday. That puts me in second place on the Caring for Carcinoid team as we try to raise $25,000 for neuroendocrine cancer and carcinoid syndrome research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The person in first place on our team has raised $4397. The person in third has raised $3450. The team is under $600 away from that $25,000 goal.

All those numbers sound impressive. But last year less than $2.5 million was raised and spent nationally for NEC research. That sounds like a lot of money until you realize that the National Cancer Institute alone spent over $5 billion on cancer research last year.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am truly grateful for every nickel people have donated to the cause of putting this disease down. I know the financial straits that many of you face. I know how fortunate I am to have the kinds of friends who are willing to open their wallets for this cause. I know how fortunate I am to have the kinds of friends who are as generous with their time as so many of you have been these past several months.

This site does not exist without you. The Facebook page (Facebook.com/walkingwithjane) does not exist without you. The t-shirts, the water bottles, the pins, the bracelets–do not exist without you. The over $11,300 we have raised together to fight cancer this year does not exist without you.

And I feel truly blessed whenever I think about those things we have done together so far. Those thoughts can pull me out of all but the very darkest moments–and even those truly dark moments are lightened by those thoughts.

But I also know how far we still have to go. While the news from the research front in recent days has given me hope, I know that none of that news really even hints at a cure. This is going to be a very long–and expensive–fight.

Those of you who have made donations of time and/or money, please accept my sincere gratitude.

Those of you who have not yet made a donation, if you can afford even a few dollars, please go to http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=449987&supId=331022955 today and make a donation or a pledge to my Marathon Walk. Every nickel donated to me or to the Caring for Carcinoid team will go to research at Dana-Farber into NEC and CS.

Let’s turn no chance into a fighting chance for those with advanced cases of this disease. And let’s turn managing the disease into a cure for those  diagnosed at the early stages.