NET cancer and Death’s quiver
I have had a pretty dark few days on both the NET cancer and life fronts. Saturday I attended a memorial service for a former colleague and friend who died of brain cancer. I drove down with a former student who was one week out of the hospital following complications with her own cancer problems. I was bombarded all weekend with the certain knowledge that life is fleeting and uncertain.
We have no choice…
And yesterday reminded me about how little we seem able to take even the NET cancer arrow from Death’s quiver.
NET cancer research funding
I had lunch yesterday with Ron Hollander, the director of the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation. We talked about a number of things that were very encouraging: the progress of the Dana-Farber NET cancer genome project, the positive reaction of someone at CBS news to the PSA scripts on NET cancer I wrote a few weeks ago, some ongoing work at Johns-Hopkins in Maryland, the dovetailing of a drug currently in trials with a newly discovered pathway in NET cancers…
Next year’s target is $156,000.
But then the conversation turned to the question of money–and there the news was less calming. At one point, Ron called total funding for NET cancer “barely a rounding error” on what we spend on breast cancer. CFCF’s goal, he said, was to double what they raised this year next year. He told me they were close to negotiating the same two-for-one matching opportunity they closed last year with–and hope to be able to put together a second matching program later. He talked about a number of small groups doing fundraising similar to ours–walks, dinners, golf tournaments–and all those small efforts do add up. By the end of December CFCF will have raised about $1.25 million.
CFCF’s portion of NET cancer fight
That’s not bad for a small foundation with a full-time staff of three operating out of an office only slightly bigger than my bedroom. The foundation pays no salaries–those get picked up by the board of trustees–so all the money they raise goes straight into the NET cancer fight.
That amounts to $2.5 million.
But that small foundation provided more money for NET cancer research than anyone else in the country–including the federal government–last year.
WWJ’s NET cancer fight
Walking with Jane has a full-time staff of one–me. I pay myself nothing and we operate out of a room in my house. So whatever we raise goes straight into the fight as well. This year we expect to raise or generate somewhere between $73,000 and $93,000. The lower figure is just under double what we raised or generated a year ago.
…an office only slightly bigger than my bedroom.
Next year’s target is $156,000.
And I have no idea how we are going to get there without even more help than we had this year.
NET cancer needs more than money
Ron wants to double what CFCF raised this year next year. That amounts to $2.5 million. CFCF is going to need lots of help getting there as well
But even if we both reach our goals, what we spend on NET cancer will still not amount to a rounding error.
“barely a rounding error”
We both agreed we need more people to be aware of the disease. We both agreed we need a big name to come forward as a spokesperson. We both agreed we need to have bigger–and more visible–events.
All three of those leave us at the mercy of others right now. When the biggest foundation in terms of income has a total full-time staff of three, running a medium-size amateur golf tournament is about the limit of what we can handle, assuming we can find enough volunteers to fill in the holes.
No NET cancer alternative
Of course the alternative is to do nothing more than we are doing now. But 33 people died today of NET cancer. Tomorrow, another 33 will die of it–and another 33 the day after that.
…life is fleeting and uncertain.
Doing what we are doing is not an option. Walking with Jane will figure out how to raise $150,000 next year. CFCF will figure out a way to raise $2.5 million.
We have no choice: NET cancer patients are counting on us to find the money to save their lives.
