The Summit to End Prostate Cancer

What a great experience!
I'm attending The Summit to End Prostate cancer here in our Nation's capital and it's being put on by Zero Cancer and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Tuesday night there was a reception where Sen. John Kerry & Nancy Pelosi stopped by to show their support. Also, I had the chance to meet Michael Milken, chairman from Prostate Cancer Foundation as well as Rosey Grier and many others.

Today we had a full day of sessions where medical experts, researchers, legislators presented on a variety of topics. Two sessions that were electric were (a) Movember, the founder, Adam Garone spoke about the event history and roadmap (what a great story) and (b) Rep. Elijah Cummings from MD on PC awareness on Capitol Hill. Rep. Cummings was awesome! Inspirational!

We heard about the advances in drugs such as Provenge and MDV3100 among others and the promise for better drugs in the near future.

needless to say I'm jazzed because tomorrow I will sit in the offices of 3 NC legislators (Burr, Hagen and Myrick) and will share my story and help raise their awareness for more funding for PC research.

I have to say, this has so far been a special experience as I've met other Prostate Cancer survivors, heard their stories and have been moved by what is possible ahead of us. Every 19 minutes a man dies from Prostate Cancer...we need to do more for early detection to dramatically drop this number.

With greater awareness, Prostate Cancer research can make significant advances.

More soon

Father's Day, an opportunity to raise awareness

we're less than a week away from Father's Day and I can't think of a better time to raise awareness about prostate cancer. It's time to get the 'light blue' as prevalent as 'pink'.

I encourage you to tell a friend that 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer and if someone you know is 40 or older, encourage them to get a simple PSA test done.

This year is particularly exciting due to the FDA approving a new drug, Provenge for late stage prostate cancer. more about Provenge

April 29, 2010 -- The FDA today approved Provenge, Dendreon Corp.'s individualized "vaccine" for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

The action comes more than three years after an FDA advisory panel recommended approval, declaring the immune therapy safe and effective. But FDA concerns over efficacy led the FDA to delay a decision until more data became available.

Provenge doesn't cure prostate cancer or prevent it from getting worse over time. But it does extend survival -- by months for most patients, by years for some.

Provenge isn't your everyday vaccine. It's an immune therapy created by harvesting immune cells from a patient, genetically engineering them to fight prostate cancer, and then infusing them back into the patient.

For me what's exciting is this will give new energy to finding a cure for Prostate Cancer, hopefully in my lifetime.

Spread the word this Father's Day.

Be well

provenge

kind of sounds like the drug from the Harrison Ford movie Fugitive (it was actually Provasic or something like that).

well, this drug, Provenge is real and could get FDA approval as early as May 1, 2010.
The Seattle-based biotech company, Dendreon, is focused on targeting and eradicating cancer. This is a revolutionary new way to fight cancer. The key is that DNDN's scientists are on the forefront of introducing a new class of therapy known as active cellular immunotherapies ("ACIs"). This approach uses live human cells to trick the patient's own immune system into fighting cancer.

very cool...drug advances are going to be my hope going forward so focus on research is high on my priority list. Research funds won't come until overall awareness happens. so next time you see me, ask me for a blue 'prostate cancer awareness' wristband. Maybe I should call Lance to get him to promote greater awareness of prostate cancer. Now where did I put his cell number.....

Later :)

follow up with the surgeon

I had a follow up appointment last week with Dr. Moul and what was nice was he patiently sat with me and spent some time. Usually he's so frantically busy that I don't get any more than 5 minutes of his time.

this time was different, we talked about my progress on hormone therapy and discussed some drugs that are either in late clinical trials or about to be approved by the FDA (that's the hope anyway).

I told him about the fact that I record every Dr. appointment where discussions take place letting me listen to them later or to have Kathy listen if she wasn't there. I told him that almost everything we heard from our very first Dr. meeting with Dr. Gaston here in Charlotte has come true. Then I asked the important question....

Will you ever be able to say I'm "cancer free"?
Well, his hesitation and somewhat stumbling response gave me my answer, most likely no.
Oh well, the glass is still half full and as I've said all along, I'm 'kickinPC' whether it likes it or not. I have too much yet to do.

Oh, btw, the weather finally turned for the better, low 60's today and yesterday so I was finally able to get out and swing a golf club. Awesome feeling I must admit :)

Make it a great week

Pints for Prostates

I attended a fundraising event last light that was a ton of fun. 'Pints for Prostates' are events held across America, usually organized by a local advocate and it's in conjunction with an organization called UsTOO International. You can find them and more information about these events at www.ustoo.org/pints. check it out.

So last night's event was held at a newer micro brewery here in Charlotte, the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery. There was live music, brats, a brewery tour and of course pints :)

There were about 75 people there and it was fun, most of all, events like this help raise awareness that 1 in 6 men get prostate cancer. All proceeds help fund education, research and patient support.

The odds of a man getting prostate cancer are greater than the odds of a woman getting breast cancer yet there isn't enough awareness or research being done to find a cure.

I'll keep raising some 'pints for prostates', maybe you could too.

See you next post