NET cancer creates doubts
There are days I have doubts about what I am doing on NET cancer. There are still, 20 months and 13 days after Jane’s death, days I wonder what it was all about. Certainly her illness changed the lives of many people in positive ways, but there are moments I see that relative handful of lives as not worth the pain she went through, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Among the billions, what is the impact of a single life?
I have said multiple times, here and elsewhere, that I want her struggle against this disease to have been the turn of the tide–that I want to stand at her grave and tell her that her death really lit the fire that ended NET cancer once and for all. I know that is an egotistical statement–and that people likely laugh at me behind my back when I say it. But I have dealt with people laughing at me for most of my life. In the end, that laughter only fuels my determination.
Even so, I have doubts some days. Among
the billions, what is the impact of a single life?
Radio-telethon’s response
Yesterday I had to drive to Brockton to deliver the check for our Marathon Walk t-shirts. WEEI was in the final day of its annual Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon and I was listening to it–as Jane and I did every year. The stories of the patients, the doctors, the researchers and support staff are joyous and horrible and beautiful all at the same time.
The stories…are joyous…horrible and beautiful…
They interviewed one young girl yesterday who faced cancer twice before her twelfth birthday and is preparing to go to start her senior year in high school. There was a young man whose chemo-therapy so damaged his heart that he had to have a heart transplant in his early 20s. Now, in his 30s, he has become a cancer researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
And then there was Toby. Toby was not there to tell his story. He died some years back. He was in his late teens.
Toby’s story
During Toby’s treatment, Dana-Farber was trying to create support programs for teens undergoing treatment for cancer. I know how difficult being different can be for any adolescent. But cancer extorts an especially terrible social–as well as physical–toll on teens in particular. The support staff organized trips to museums and ball games and all kinds of different activities–and everything seemed to the staff to be going fine.
His words changed the program.
Then Toby took the young woman who was running the program aside one day. He told her what they were doing was great for getting the kids’ minds off their illnesses, but that teenagers are social creatures–and what they really needed was social time together–time to be normal teenagers, even if they had no hair and were perpetually nauseous.
His words changed the program. Now DFCI arranges trips around the idea that social time, away from the needles and the radiation, matters–that a trip to the beach or Disney World can be more important for kids than an escape to the Museum of Science or the Cape Canaveral Space Center.
Cancer kills bodies, not ideas
Toby’s cancer killed his body but it could not kill his idea. Toby lives in every one of those kids who goes off on a Jimmy Fund trip. His battle goes on in every softball tournament his parents organize.
Toby lives in every one of those kids…
Too often, we see in obituaries the phrase, “lost his/her battle with cancer.” But the truth is something different. One of Jane’s doctors reminded me the day before she died–when we knew there was nothing more we could do–that Jane had said she wanted to beat NET cancer–and that now the only way for her to do that was to die and take it with her–that it would die when she did. It was cold comfort then–and not much better now.
Jane’s NET cancer battle continues
But Jane’s battle against NET cancer goes on just as Toby’s does against his. Neither has lost the battle against their cancer unless those of us left behind give up our battle. Every dollar we raise makes a difference. Every bit of research makes a difference. Every bit of hard-won knowledge makes a difference.
Every death makes a difference–but so does every life.
Marathon Walk Update
I am officially a three-star pacesetter. Unofficially, I have raised just over $6000 for this year’s Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk. The final level is just under $4000 away. If we reach that by September 1, I will shave my head for the event. If the team reaches $50,000 by September 1, I will shave my head for the event even if I personally do not reach $10,000.
If both happen, my head stays shaved until Christmas.
All monies we raise will go to NET cancer research and education through the Walking with Jane Dybowski Fund for Neuroendocrine Cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
