UPDATE 2024: This year I'll add an extra day of riding from the NY State border and we will reach ONE BILLION DOLLARS donated to Dana Farber Cancer Institute! Hope that you can continue to be a part of this epic milestone.
UPDATE 2023: ACL Replacement surgery in mid-January...this should be interesting ;-)
UPDATE 2022: My PMC career is now old enough to drink! Cheers to ending cancer.
UPDATE 2021: This will be my 20th year of particpation in the Pan Mass Challenge! We will ride as group again this year although the lingering effects of the pandemic continue to prevent a complete return to normalcy. The team and I will ride the majority of our miles on the official route, but we will continue over the Bourne Bridge and end of Day 1 at my home in Falmouth where we will spend the night. (The PMC was unable to provide logding this year). I think this will be a fun diversion though! On Day 2 we'll depart from Falmouth, connect back with the official ride, and continue on to PTown. Im looking forward to seeing you along the route!
UPDATE 2020: Cancer doesn't social distance even in a worldwide pandemic. Stay tuned for a REIMAGINED Pan Mass Challenge this year.
UPDATE 2019: They only gave me 50/50 odds on making it to 5 years, but I'm still here! Thank you! Your generosity and support of the years is the reason that I'm thriving today.
UPDATE 2018: Feelin' good! Scans are still unchanged.
Team Kinetic Karma and I lost our dear teammate Patrick in December at only 36 years old. He willed himself to share his final months with his newborn daughter, Rose. Hopefully she will have lasting memories of her dad. I will ride in his memory this year. I also have several close friends in treatment that deserve better than their current prognoses offer. I cannot stop riding yet!
UPDATE 2017: I continue to feel great and remain active, but the last year has not been without its challenges.I've had a scare with a CT Scan showing some abnormal growth near the location of my original primary tumor, but a second opinion suggested that we continue to watch. I will continue to live my life without too much anxiety. Additionally, several people close to me are in the midst of their battles...
UPDATE 2016: I'm two years out from my original diagnoses (another three years to get to the magical 5-year mark) and the road has not always been smooth. I've had a few 'scares', but I currently show no clear evidence of a recurrence. I've lost several good friends to cancer in the past year which reinforces that our work is not yet done! I will be riding from the NY State border again this year covering nearly 300 miles in three days! I'll do the heavy lifting and you write me a check! ;-)
I dedicate this years ride to two team members that we lost this year...Danno was always the heart of the team and he will be greatly missed. Jeff provided motivation and comedy relief in a hulking body...cancer took him in a mere 8 weeks ;-(
UPDATE 2015: I am now one year removed from treatment and all is still good! Four more years and I'm allowed to use the word 'cured'. That's a long way off and there is lots of work yet to be done. I completed last year's PMC in the rain and cold just out of a grueling treatment regimen, and I'm committed to the challenge yet again this year. Please continue to support me and Team Kinetic Karma as you have done over the last 13 years. We've raised over $1.7 million in that time with your generous support!
UPDATE 2014: Originally I rode in response to my mother's several battles with cancer (see story below). Last year I rode to support my younger sister who at age 45 was diagnosed with colon cancer and is now doing well. This year, I ride for me! I was diagnosed with metastatic oropharyngeal cancer in November of 2013. I've had three surgeries already and will begin nearly two months of radiation treatments starting in late January of 2014. My hope is that I will recover sufficiently to begin training in the early summer and complete the 2014 PMC like I have done every year for the last 12 years!
Follow my progress at: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/davelafreniere
My story, as it relates to the Pan Massachusetts Challenge, begins in April of 2002, April 2nd to be exact. Friend and co-worker, Christine Marag, had been touting the life-altering experience of participation in the PMC for a couple years and I had finally decided to give it a try. I was a fairly active guy who enjoyed cycling and several of my family member's lives had been impacted by cancer, so it seemed like a great fit and a worthy cause. Three of my grandparents had died from cancer. My mom's dad passed away from stomach cancer at the young age of 47 years old! Mom had her own lengthy history with the disease. She had her first bout with breast cancer in the early 90's resulting in a lumpectomy and radiation treatments. In 1996, she was diagnosed with uveal melanoma; a rare cancer of the eye unrelated to her breast cancer. Again, she was treated with radiation, the tumor shrunk and she luckily retained much of her vision in that eye. In 2002, a follow-up mammogram had found more cancerous cells lurking. On April 11, 2001, mom underwent a radical mastectomy to again remove the disease from her body. But, still the battle was not over. Less than a year after her mastectomy surgery, mom again sensed something wrong. A nagging pain in her abdomen led her to visit her doctor. A battery of tests was performed. X-Rays showed an ominous mass. I registered for my first PMC that day in April of 2002.
Mom had beaten cancer in three previous bouts. Initially, we had no reason to feel that it could not be defeated a fourth time. It was relatively easy to be complaisant when the media tout promising new cancer treatments daily. A cure seemed closer than ever. We had the highest expectations that the medical community had the answers. We soon learned a fact that very few realize. As a country, we are losing the war on cancer and mom was in for the battle of her life.
On April 18, 2002, our worst fears were confirmed. The diagnosis was metastatic uveal melanoma. The eye cancer had spread to her liver and the prognosis was poor. The median survival of patients with metastases to the liver from uveal melanoma is 7 months. My mother's oncologist, after some prodding, referred us to a prominent liver surgeon at Lahey Clinic. Reducing the tumor load could possibly extend my mother's life and even improve the probability that her body could fight the cancerous cells. Finally on May 17, after inexcusable delays, mom was rolled into the operating room to have the right lobe of her liver removed in a 5 hour operation. My step-father, Norm and I waited nervously in a sitting area as my two sisters made their way through rush hour traffic toward Lahey in Burlington, MA. Within two hours from the start of the surgery, I noticed my mother's surgeon entering the waiting area. My heart sunk; I immediately knew that he did not have good news. He ushered my step-father and I into a small office and tactfully explained what he had just observed. My mother's abdominal cavity was riddled with tumors and they could not be removed. The surgery was aborted.
Depressed, but not defeated, we attempted to schedule another appointment with my mother's oncologist. He had obviously given up on her case and refused to schedule an immediate appointment for her. When we finally did get an appointment weeks later, he was unprepared to provide alternative treatments and clearly was not even familiar with my mother's rare form of melanoma. The only option that he offered was the standard chemotherapy protocol used for cutaneous melanoma, which is a completely different type of melanoma. I knew from my own research that the chances of any response to this treatment were less than 2% and that the effect on my mother's quality of life would be devastating. It was an insulting and unacceptable offer; a miniscule chance of extending my mother's life for a month or two at the cost of ruining the quality of life for the time that she had left. After that day, my sisters and I directed the course of my mother's treatment, effectively firing her oncologist. We researched feverishly; evaluating possible alternative treatments, searching for appropriate clinical trials and contacting doctors around the world who may have insights into this rare disease.
We next put our trust in the hands of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston who had an outstanding reputation in researching new treatments for melanoma. Unfortunately, my mother's rare form of ocular melanoma was not the type of melanoma that the hospital was interested in researching. They had no new treatments or clinical trials applicable to my mother's type of melanoma. To our horror, our renowned researcher offered the standard chemotherapy that we refused earlier, fully knowing that it would be ineffective. His bedside manner was non-existent as he made my mother feel like an unworthy lab rat. My relationship with our doctor became contentious. I peppered him with questions about possible treatments and applicable clinical trials. Strict clinical trial protocols prevented my mother from receiving treatments that may have been beneficial because she did not fit their patient requirements. The option of being treated off-trial was discouraged due to legal and liability issues. I finally convinced the doctor to allow my mother to take part in a Phase I clinical trial that tested the possibility of anti-angiogenic properties of the common prescription drug Celebrex. The hypothesis had not even been advanced in animal testing, but my mother needed some treatment, any treatment, to feel that she was fighting back. We were searching for hope. Our hope became desperation when the protocol dictated that we delay the treatment nearly a month because another drug that my mother had taken may skew their data. I argued vehemently and got the wash-out period reduced to two weeks. Mom was now getting treatment, but we knew that it was not the treatment. We continued our search.
...
That was how I left my story several years ago. I guess that it was too painful to write. Now, many of the details have faded from memory, but there's no denying that mom has been dearly missed. Bits and pieces flash in my memory from time to time; sometimes they seem like scenes from a movie; there were non-approved but promising drugs 'smuggled' into this country, foreign doctors who sought 'bribes' to procure such drugs, and another doctor who put his career on the line in an effort to save my mother. Naivetee gave way to mistrust and the realization that me and my sisters were ultimately responsible for our course of action. There was a desperate trip to Philadelphia in the hope of an experimental miracle and finally dramatic moments of realization that we were fighting a losing battle. Mom slipped into a deep sleep and I was robbed of the final conversation that I had hoped that we would share. My sisters, my step-father and I were at her side much of her final days. Before the sun even rose on Friday, August 2, 2002, my step-father summoned me to my mom's bedside and I held her hand as her heart beat for the last time. I began my first PMC on the very next day with a heavy heart...