NET cancer makes me crazy
There are days lately when I want to give up on NET cancer. I have become obsessed with NET cancer in ways that are not healthy for me in the long-term. And I know that if I were wise I would walk away from my ongoing search for a cure for NET cancer–at least for a little while.
The needs of the many…
I got a call this weekend from an old friend who told me some folks are becoming concerned about me–that my ongoing battle to find funding for NET cancer and an answer to this disease has infected every aspect of my life–that it seems to be nearly all I do, all I think about, all I talk about.
And it is all true. And worse than true. I am flirting with burn-out. Yet the obsession remains. While Jane is the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night, NET cancer is the second thing I think about when I wake up and the next to the last thing I do before I sleep.
NET cancer finances
None of this is helped by the 10,000 frustrations this work is heir to. From mid-August through early September I raised close to $4000. The Caring for Carcinoid Walking with Jane team raised a total of over $18,000 through the Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk for NET cancer research.
…now I confront the Cancer Moon Shot…
From a sane perspective, that is a huge amount of money. But the fight against NET cancer is anything but sane. The week before the Walk the news broke about a possible cure for NET cancer–a cure, when it is all said and done will likely require more than $10,000 to get approved in the US and in Europe–if it works. That cure sits in a freezer in Sweden because the money does not exist to fund even the Phase I trial. At $1.6 million that trial dwarfs the money we have raised so far.
NET cancer information
Every day, I scour the Internet looking for new information about NET cancer. Most days, there is nothing really new out there–and when there is, it is often on a site that wants $35 or so to access the paper for a single day. The abstract gives tantalizing bits that hint at something important but the fruit hangs just out of reach–or worse, is written in jargon so dense that I wonder if even another doctor can make sense of what is there.
…the fruit hangs just out of reach…
I try to post something new here every day. I write these notes to a dwindling audience. I craft them so they will not only be easy to read but also to follow the directives about Search Engine Optimization. Once a week I do Google, Yahoo, Ask, and Bing searches on NET cancer. Our ranking never improves. We are always 5-10 pages deep.
Those the search engines do deliver to our site show up from search terms I do not see connections to. Nor can I figure out why those terms place us so early. None of it makes much sense–and all of it only further frustrates me.
NET cancer and the Moon Shot
And now I confront the Cancer Moon Shot. The plan is to really go after cures for the major cancers: breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer… NET cancer does not make the list. I worry that initiative will suck up even the paltry private resources aimed at NET cancer now.
None of this is helped by the 10,000 frustrations…
And the federal budget is going to be trimmed–not that we get much there.
NET cancer and me
Meanwhile, an old friend faces the final days of his struggle with brain cancer while a neighbor begins his own struggle with that form of the disease. Another neighbor fights kidney cancer, another, bladder cancer. Former students face their own and their parents’ and children’s battles with the disease.
I am flirting with burn-out.
So I can’t walk away from any of it.
And I need to walk away from all of it.
But I won’t. “The needs of the many,” to quote Mr. Spock, “outweigh the needs of the few–or the one.”
