Race for the cure

"The race is on. Our finest scientific minds are working on this right now. Beat cancer, kill cancer, before it kills again. It is a race which must be won." 

This summer was quite eventful for me. Besides having both my eyes operated on for cataracts (I call it my mid-life vision tune up), I also has a brush with skin cancer. Totally unexpected. In any event, I had a chunk taken out of my side which contained some cancerous cells on my skin. This is why yearly check-ups are so vital. To catch things like that early.

In any event, as my skin doctor was cutting away on me, he and I were chatting about where he went to medical school (he and I both went to the U of M). He said he still is active with the School of Medicine there, and is amazed at how much good cancer research goes on at the "U". For those who have visited the University of Minnesota's School of Medicine know one thing for certain - it is HUGE.

A few weeks after my procedure, I started thinking about how much cancer research must go on in our country. In the world. Whomever, or whatever institution finds the "silver bullet" for cancer, it will be the shot heard round the world. It will be the end of one the biggest scourges mankind has ever suffered. It will be the most wonderful day. 

That led me to thinking. Besides the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where else is a lot of cancer research being done? So I went on the National Cancer Institute website. Quite impressive. Every day, there are hundreds of different research projects going on at 71 designated cancer centers. And going through the list of names, these are all top flight organizations. Plus - that is this is just in our country. We know that similar research is also going on in many other countries as well. Why? Cancer affects everyone.

Right now, there are literally hundreds to new medicines in all stages of approval. Many are for the treatment cancer. Thanks to the Right to Try Act, which President Trump signed into law in May of 2018, patients no longer have to wait until new drugs get to the final stages of FDA approval. They can choose to try a promising drug which is not yet fully approved. Most cancer docs will tell you the same thing - the name of the game when being treated for cancer is to continue to stick around. Every year the treatments better and better with fewer side effects. 

This is the race for the cure folks. I dare say everyone reading this has had some cancer, or knows of someone who has had cancer, or has it now. This past year, my wife and I lost three close friends to disease - two of which were cancer.

The race is on. Our finest scientific minds are working on this right now. Beat cancer, kill cancer, before it kills again. It is a race which must be won.