On the 10th anniversary of Empire State Ride, I’ve committed to cycling more than 500 miles from NYC to Niagara Falls, over seven days, for one reason: to end cancer. This is my opportunity to support the pioneering work of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (Roswell Park) in its quest to cure all forms of cancer.
On January 6, 2022, we learned our daughter, Aileen had a particularly aggressive form of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. From an initial visit to a walk-in clinic in November to admittance to Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC, her health deteriorated rapidly. In fact, she was admitted the day after she was diagnosed and began the first of 6 rounds of chemotherapy. This treatment works for the majority of patients, but though it reduced the tumors, it did not completely eradicate them.
However, in November of 2022 she began CAR T treatment, a treatment pioneered at Roswell Park. On January 6, 2023, Aileen was declared cancer free, exactly one year from the date of her diagnosis. Here we are one more year later and she is still cancer free and working in a wonderful new job.
I am sure many of you have similar stories and have looked for ways you can participate in the quest to find a cure for cancer. This ride is my way of helping find a cure.
I am not a research scientist, but I am a bike rider. I cannot find the cure for the many forms of cancer, but I can help raise money to support that research by riding my bike. That is why I am riding a bicycle 500+ miles over 7 days.
The effort to ride that bike is nowhere near the effort and sheer will to beat cancer that my daughter displayed during her treatment.
She is a lucky survivor, as I am, having survived prostate cancer for over 12 years. However, my nephew Jack McKenna lost his life at 22 to a cancer on his spinal cord that he was forced to fight during Covid. My father, Joseph McKenna (58 years old); my mother, Frances McKenna; father-in-law, Thomas Cassidy; mother-in-law, Joan Cassidy; grandfather, Frederick Wilson; my uncle, Gerard McKenna and my son's wife Kristen's mother, Marianne Traband all died too soon from various forms of cancer.
I ride for my daughter and all those who may have lived longer with the kind of treatments being developed at Roswell Park and other cancer research center.
Please contribute to my ride to help fund the ongoing efforts of Roswell Park as they work to find treatments for these horrible diseases.
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Aileen's Reflection
The other day my therapist asked me how I felt about aging. The truth is it's never scared me much-- but after surviving lymphoma, it does hit different. Each year feels like a relief, and a prize. It was hard to be scared of turning 40 when I'd just been so scared of dying.
Turning 41 is a gift, given to me by my amazing doctors and even more amazing science. Because chemo didn't cut it for me, but CAR-T saved my life. And CAR-T is a treatment so new that I was among the first cohort of people to receive it as a second-line treatment. I didn't have to let the cancer do it's worst for several years while we ravaged my body with several more rounds of chemo and other treatment attempts first. If I'd been sick even one year earlier things would have looked very different.
Right now CAR-T is only an option for people like me, with specific types of blood cancer that do not form solid tumors. But there's so much research happening this very moment around the application of this type of treatment for all kinds of other, awful cancers.
When I think of the people I've loved and lost to cancer, especially in the last few years, I wish so fiercely that they'd had a few more birthdays before they got sick. So that the science had time to catch up to their disease. So they could have the privilege of many more birthdays after that.
Which is all to say that for my birthday this year, I'd love to help my Dad raise funds for Roswell Park, who pioneered research around CAR-T years ago, and continue to do so today.
If you're inclined to donate, I'd appreciate it so very much. Let's help give more people more healthy birthdays!
by Fred McKenna on Tue, Apr 02, 2024 @ 11:13 AM
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Reflections
Becoming involved with the Empire State Ride to End Cancer has caused me to reflect on the people I have known and lost too early to cancer.
I have been thinking about three young people in particular lately. My nephew Jack McKenna who was a student, an athlete and a wonderful nephew. Jack developed a tumor on his spinal chord right at the beginning of Covid and sadly passed 10 months later at 22 years of age. He left behind so many people who loved him and will not get to see what he could have become in life. I miss Jack and I ride to raise money so that the next Jack will not die.
I also think about a young man, Pat Petersen, who I first met in 1973 in my 8th grade science class. He was a quiet young man, a good student and I would later learn, a great runner. I had the privilege of working with Pat as a Varsity Track member in his Junior and Senior year. He was a pleasure to know and coach. He went on to run for my alma mater, Manhattan College, setting records that still stand today. I followed his track career and saw him rise to become the top American marathoner. Unfortunately, Pat died at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer.
The last person I want to talk about is a young man, Bobby Eck, who came to work for me at 19 years old. I remember his Aunt Marilyn, the office manager in our family doctor's office, talking about her bright young nephew. I interviewed him and decided to give him a chance as an intern programmer. I could not imagine at that meeting that he would go on to lead our programming team and become one of the key leaders at my company, Orion Systems Group. He was smart, hard working, loyal and a wonderful person to be around. Everyone loved Bobby, fellow employees, customers, and anyone who would have the opportunity to meet and work with him. Bobby contracted leukemia, received a stem cell treatment which cured him of the leukemia only to contract Ewings Sarcoma and pass 7 years later. He left us too soon.
All of these individuals were wonderful people and were taken from us too young. A treatment for their cancer wasn't developed in time to save their lives.
Please help me raise money so that treatments can be developed to save people like Jack, Pat and Bobby. They are missed!
Every dollar counts!
by Fred McKenna on Tue, Mar 05, 2024 @ 1:20 PM
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