2025 Ride:
On August 2nd & 3rd, I will be riding 186 miles in honor and memory of my wonderful mom, who passed away last year after a long, courageous battle with Multiple Myeloma.
I ride to support the research that gives families more time together, like it did ours.
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2023 Ride:
On August 5th & 6th, I will be riding 186 miles in honor of my mom, who relentlessly battles Multiple Myeloma.
When my mom was first diagnosed in 2012, the scary truth was that there were not many treatment options available for Multiple Myeloma. Since that time, we have seen amazing new drugs and technologies become available as a result of Dana Farber's cancer research and clinical trials. Those successes would not be possible without the help of fundraisers like the Pan-Mass Challenge.
The most difficult hurdle for my mom has come most recently, over this past Fall/Winter. On the day after Thanksgiving (46 days before she was supposed to receive a brand-new treatment known as CAR T cell therapy), we heard words you never want to hear. The cancer had spread to her central nervous system, and there was little to nothing available to treat the disease after it migrates into this area. The spreading was causing her to lose feeling in her legs, hands and the side of her face and she was quickly losing her ability to walk. Her doctor immediately had her start very intense chemotherapy and radiation, with an inkling of hope, but neither worked. Her symptoms continued to worsen rapidly, leading to the paralysis of the lower half of her body. CAR T was our glimmer of hope, as we prayed for a miracle. CAR T had not yet been tried on a patient with Multiple Myeloma in the central nervous system before as it is an extremely rare situation (<1% chance), but her doctor speculated that CAR T could possibly give her a chance at recovery. After chemotherapy and radiation had failed to help, we felt like the CAR T procedure could not come fast enough.
In a matter of days after my mom received the CAR T, it was like watching a miracle happen before our own eyes. Our mom went from not being able to move her legs in her hospital bed to being able to stand up on her own and gradually gain the mobility and strength to walk again... The cancer level in her blood dropped to the lowest it has been in years... This brand-new treatment saved our mom's life. Please consider donating to help Dana Farber find more life-saving treatments, like this one, for all cancer types. Every donation makes a difference.
While 100% of the funds I raise will go to Dana Farber, most of the funds I raise will be specifically directed to Dana Farber's Clinical Director of Hematologic Malignancies (i.e., Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Multiple Myeloma) to assist in their team's continued research. While the brand-new treatment my mom just underwent in January completely saved her life, I am choosing to direct the funds I raise to the same team of doctors and researchers that are on the verge of coming out with similar breakthroughs. These treatments have proved to be incredibly successful across various types of cancer, beyond just blood cancers, including breast cancer and melanoma. My hope is that these very breakthroughs bring us a giant step closer to a world without terminal cancer.
