Thursday, May 13, 2010

Pan-Mass Challenge

Once again, my brother Mike will be riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge this year, on August 7th and 8th. The PMC is a two-day (obviously) bike ride across half of Massachusetts, fom Wellesley to Provincetown. He and many others will raise money for cancer research and treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.


Last year, Mike raised $5600, exceeding his goal. This year, his goal is $5000.


I'm making an appeal to you all to support Mike on his ride.


As I have done in the past, I'll make this personal: As you know, I am vitally interested in lymphoma research -- and I mean "vitally" in the most literal way possible. Lymphoma research saves lives, and the treatment I have received and am in line to receive is available because of research like the kind now being done at Dana-Farber.


As I write this, researchers at Dana-Farber are involved in 23 trials involving Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma -- 3 involving treatments for Follicular NHL in particular. These resarch projects involve some of the treatments I've written about: RIT, the next generation of monoclonal antibodies, stem cell transplants, and some new targeted therapies that I haven't even heard of yet.


Please consider giving to Mike's ride. The easiest way to do it is to donate online. You can do so at his secure PMC web page:

http://www.pmc.org/profile/MM0386


If you don't want to donate online, let me know, and I'll forward you Mike's mailing address.


Thanks for considering this.

(Yeah, sure, there's plenty of time to donate. But if you don't do it right now, are you really going to remember when July rolls around?)

2 comments:

Stumpy said...

Bob -

Thanks for posting this, and helping spread the word. One of you blog readers was already kind enought to contribute.

I'm especially happy to hear that you and other NHL patients are benefitting from the research at Dana-Farber. The Pan Mass challenge is the primary fundraiser for the DFCI, last year over 5,000 riders raised $30 million dollars which went directly to funding research.

Aside from the minor pains of riding 165+ miles in 2 days, the weekend itself and the many dedicated volunteers that make this evenet happen is a statement of how much cancer has affected all of us, and represents our committment to find a cure.

Hope you can make it here for part of the weekend this year.

Mike

Lymphomaniac said...

You're welcome. Glad to help, even if it's in my very small way -- keystrokes aren't the same as downstrokes over 165 miles.