My Battle with Cancer
In March 2009, I received the devastating news that I had stage III lung cancer.  It took my doctors over 4 months to diagnose this disease, figuring that a healthy, athletic person that had never smoked a day in his life would never have lung cancer.

After treatment with the standard regimen of chemotherapy and radiation,  it was determined that the cancer was inoperable, having spread to the nearby lymph nodes.  Shortly thereafter, the cancer had spread to the opposite lung. 

With a less-than-rosy prognosis, my doctors at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance had my cancer cells tested for a specific mutation that had recently been discovered to be a driver of lung cancer.  I  tested positive for this mutation, and  entered a clinical trial at the University of Colorado Cancer Center  for a new targeted therapy that had shown very promising at killing cancer that depended on my specific mutation.  After taking the new drug for a week, all of my symptoms disappeared.

I am now cancer free and working at 100% capacity.  I’m back to jogging, playing soccer, skiing and hiking.  I take a pill twice a day, with very few side effects. 

Finding this medicine was a true miracle, and gave me back to my family and friends.  I have many people to thank for this, including the doctors, nurses and staff at both the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and the University of Colorado Cancer Center.   I am the beneficiary of countless decades of scientific and medical research that has lead to breakthroughs like the one I have experienced. 

One of the reasons I am running for public office is that I would like to advocate for continued scientific research and development of life saving and life altering therapies like the one I’ve received.  I also want to stand as an example of someone that maintained hope throughout my ordeal and perhaps inspire others in similar situations to persevere.

I also want to work for lung cancer advocacy.  Lung cancer kills more people every year than breast, prostate and colo-rectal cancers combined.  It is a stealthy disease, rarely caught in its early stages, and often with deadly results.  Funding for lung cancer research lags that of other cancers, primarily due to the stigma of smoking.  However, more than half of all new diagnosis are in people that have never smoked or have quit smoking.  Progress is being made, as I can attest to, but more needs to be done. 

Below are some resources that I have found helpful in my fight:

Global Resource for Advancing Cancer Education (GRACE), www.cancergrace.org  

The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, www.lungcancerfoundation.org

The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, www.seattlecca.org

The University of Colorado Cancer Center, www.uch.edu