NET cancer financial appeal
Most of the time I try to use this space to educate people about NET cancer, Jane’s struggle with it, and what we are trying to do to help find a cure. But twice a year I make a direct, formal appeal here for donations to help us find answers to the riddle that is NET cancer.
I’ll be thankful for your help.
It was cold when I got up this morning. It was cold when I went out to drop off some letters. It will be hot chocolate weather tonight and I will have some while I watch an hour or two of television before retreating to bed.
NET cancer creates widows and widowers
But I will do all of that alone. Since Jane died of NET cancer in December of 2010, I do almost everything alone. I shovel snow, I buy groceries, I clean the house—all things we once did together without thinking about how we would miss even those seemingly inconsequential moments if one of us died.
I hate asking people for money.
I remember August 16, 2010 vividly. It was the day they told us about Jane’s NET cancer—a form of cancer her doctor had never heard of—and her first oncologist had never seen. There was nothing average about her cancer. There was nothing average about the days leading to her death. And there has been nothing average about the days since.
Only one way to kill late stage NET cancer
No one had ever beaten late stage NET cancer, but Jane was determined to be the first. In the end, she beat it the only way anyone ever has—by dying and taking it with her. We would have tried anything, but the truth is there was nothing to try except a series of operations with very long odds of success.
Cancers viewed as zebras get little funding respect…
We tried anyway. And her doctors told me when it was over that they had learned a lot from her case—but even more from her indomitable spirit.
The NET cancer zebra
We know a lot more about NET cancer than we did when Jane was diagnosed. But we still have no cure. We still have no reliable way to diagnose the disease. And the average primary care physician knows as little about it as Jane’s did. They call NET cancer a zebra—a disease more likely to show up on TV’s House than in an actual practice.
…we still have no cure.
But there are 120,000 people in the US who know they have the disease—and no one knows how many more have it and will never know, even as it kills them. It looks like so many other diseases that the average NET cancer patient is incorrectly diagnosed three times before someone gets it right.
The finances of NET cancer
Jane was misdiagnosed seven times and was seeing the doctor about what looked like a fluid retention problem when they finally got it right. She could just as easily have been told she had heart disease and have that on her death certificate instead of the real cause.
No one had ever beaten late stage NET cancer…
Cancers viewed as zebras get little funding respect either. Last year, about 12,000 people were diagnosed with NET cancer in the US. Total spending on NET cancer research amounted to less than $5 million. About 12,000 cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed last year. The American Cancer Society alone budgeted over $16 million for research on that. They spent about $1 million on NET cancer.
But while about 12,000 people died in 2012 of NET cancer, only 4,220 died of cervical cancer.
My tin cup is out there
I hate asking people for money. I’d like to resolve all our research needs with the stroke of a pen. But I am not financially rich and–barring I hit the lottery—I’m not going to be.
I remember August 16, 2010 vividly.
So I’m here with my tin cup to ask for your help. I’ll promise you this: All the money Walking with Jane raises will go to finding a cure for NET cancer and educating doctors about it or to the American Cancer Society to research all cancers and help support cancer patients and their families as they fight the long lonely battle against cancer. You can choose where what you donate goes.
The NET Cancer Walker
And whatever walk I am on–whether the Marathon Walk or the Relay for Life–I’ll be thankful for your help.
It was cold when I got up this morning.
To quote Helen Keller: Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
Pax et lux,
Harry Proudfoot
Chairman, Walking with Jane, Inc.
Walking with Jane, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable corporation
organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
