Cancer Gets Personal

As many of you know, I work at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (or simply Fred Hutch). It’s a very rewarding job knowing that I am helping scientists crack the code of cancer and save lives. But to be honest, when working in cancer research, it’s very easy to keep the suffering from cancer at a very distant, clinical, and safe distance from oneself. Hey, it’s just a job! (In reality, it’s not just a job, but I’ll save that for another post.)  But I have a more personal relationship with this thing called cancer.

Over twenty years ago my sister, Pat, had a close call with melanoma.

My dad had a pre-cancerous but serious disease of his throat called Barrett’s Esophagus. It got so serious for my dad that they had to surgically remove part of his esophagus in a quite painful surgery. (Fred Hutch is a world leader in Barrett’s Esophagus research, by the way.)

My cousin, Paul Kunzinger, who was born within a year of me, died of lung cancer in 2007 at the age of 49 leaving behind his wife and two lovely girls. (If you are interested, I wrote about Paul in a blog post back in 2009 while I was raising money for a different cancer ride.) Needless to say, his death was devastating to his family.

Cancer really hit home, however, when my wife, Suzanna, had a major scare when her only kidney (transplanted from her dad almost 20 years ago) was found to have a cancerous tumor on it a few months after we were engaged in 2010. It was very likely that she might lose her kidney in the battle and then what? I was certainly ready to give her one of mine but we didn’t know if I would be a good match. Fortunately, her kidney surgery was a resounding success and she was able to keep her kidney. She gets a scan every year to make sure it hasn’t come back. (Suzanna, who is also riding Obliteride this year, has written about her cancer battle in a series of posts on her blog.)

Suzanna and I are so so lucky that it worked out so well because, to be frank, we feared the worst. I’m sure we felt like many people who get the diagnosis of cancer. That’s why research needs to continue at world-class cancer research centers like Fred Hutch. And this is why Suzanna and I are riding Obliteride to raise money for Fred Hutch. I hope you can help.