Staying The Course Against Cancer
What makes the Lance Armstrong foundation, "Ride for the Roses," different from other cancer walks and runs and races is the fact that it is not about finding a cure.
It is 6,500 cyclists out raising $6 million in one day for the cause Lance Armstrong so famously embodies--survivorship.
"We believe in life, your life, and that you must not let cancer take control of it," says Armstrong.
A diagnosis of cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence, according to data released last week by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The five year survival rate for Americans over 50, the group most likely to be diagnosed with the disease, is increasing on average nearly 2% a year to 64% in 2000 from 43% in 1975.
Remember when nobody dared utter the C word? Then in 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act. Since then the change has been profound. For starters, look at the people who've gone public with the fact they've had cancer.
Just recently, for example, singer James Brown disclosed last week he has prostate cancer. He insisted he'd be back at work in three weeks.
The official definition of a cancer survivor is anybody who's been diagnosed with cancer, never mind how long ago or if that person is even cancer free. But the fact is there are more and more cancer survivors out there living longer.
"In 1971, we had about 3 million cancer survivors. (In) 2002, we had almost ten million survivors," says Julia Rowland, director of the National Cancer Institute's Office of Survivorship.
The NCI was created as the federal government's acknowledgment that cancer survivors have issues--major physical and emotional issues caused by the very treatments that have kept them alive. This year the NCI spent $170 million on research into those issues, nearly quadruple what it spent just six years ago.
"We are now pushing the research community to say, it's not okay to say that there are problems. Tell me what you're going to do about it," says Rowland.
"Today's treatment probably don't leave people in the best shape when they leave the hospital," says Armstrong. "Physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, all over the place, chemotherapy today is still tough treatment."
Diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer in 1996, at the age of 25, Armstrong nearly died. After surgery and chemotherapy that could only be described as brutal, he not only recovered, he went on to win the Tour de France a record seven times. But that was only possible because the chemo he had wasn't the conventional treatment for testicular cancer.
"Standard therapy for testicular cancer includes a drug called Bleomycin, which is an extremely toxic drug." Armstrong says. Bleomycin scars the lungs. If Armstrong had gotten it, he never would have been able to race a bicycle again.
"Fortunately, I had great doctors that looked at it and said, wait a minute, and we can't give this kid Bleo."
Today the question cancer survivors have the luxury of asking their doctors is not will I live, but how well will I live.
Dr. Howard Scher, chief of urologic oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, credits earlier diagnosis and more sophisticated cancer drugs for the improvement.
"At the beginning of your career were doctors thinking of the quality of life issues," Scher recalls. "Those were less of an issue because the ability to actually cure the cancers that we were treating was much less.
"I think back on the options that I could offer patients ten years ago versus what I have available now. It's a completely different landscape. Now not only are there more options but there are more options that we can tailor to an individual patient's cancer. I wouldn't say it's a breakthrough. I would say it's an explosion."
Case in point. Study results published this past week showing that a new drug, Arimidex, is far more effective at preventing breast cancer in post-menopausal women than the old standard, Tamoxifen, without its life-threatening side-effects.
"I don't live in fear anymore because whatever's going to happen, if it comes back again, I'm going to deal with it," says Walene White, adding life after breast cancer looks manageable.
The Wellness Community of Philadelphia offers cancer patients a sanctuary for help in coping with their disease. Judi Gerstl has had it three times. Jim Shea twice. "It's recognition you've got a chronic illness, and chronic illnesses can be treated, and you can live with that," says Shea.
Julia Barnard is an example of how much the cancer landscape has changed.
"One thing I was able to do is shop around...That's what it was in terms of chemotherapy, drugs that they wanted to use to treat my type of cancer and pick the ones that would affect fertility the least," she says.
Kathy Giusti also is one of the growing number of high profile cancer survivors whose unique skills have allowed them to begin dictating the terms in the field of cancer.
"For so much of my life I lived thinking I just need to see Nicole go to kindergarten. Then I thought I just needed to see David go to kindergarten. You have all these milestones, where one leads to the next one, and you think, you know what, there's really no good time to die."
In 1996, Harvard MBA Giusti was a marketing executive at the pharmaceutical giant, Searle when she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare incurable cancer that attacks the bone marrow, a disease she shares with New York Yankees pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
Her cancer wasn't active, and with monthly treatments of a drug that builds bone density, it hasn't progressed. So she was able to start the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation with her cancer-free twin sister, Karen, a corporate lawyer. It's raised over $40 million.
They didn't stop there. There next innovation was a consortium that got four major research institutions to do something practically unheard of: work together in order to fast track drugs to market, like Velcade, used for myeloma and prostate cancer.
"It takes ten years to get a new drug to market, and we were able to get that drug to market in five years," Giusti says.
That brings us back to Lance Armstrong.
"I will not be known as Lance Armstrong the cyclist. I want to be known as the cancer survivor," he says.
Armstrong's foundation has managed to sell 28 million of its yellow live strong wristbands at a dollar a piece. Thanks largely to the bracelets, the foundation has raised nearly $45 million this year, a big enough chunk of change to have a major influence on the kind of research being done to improve the lives of cancer survivors.
At the Ride for the Roses, live strong is a message of hope.
For Scott Capozza of Fairfield, Connecticut, a six-year survivor of testicular cancer, live strong meant daring to propose to Katie Syambathy at the end of his 40K ride.
"As Lance says, life after cancer is all about living, and I want to spend the rest of my life with Katie."
Live Strong. Words to live by.