BigBlueBOTTLE

Carla and I went to the PMC Heavy Hitter (HH) dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston last night. It was great to be in a posh hotel eating great food, drinking FREE booze, and socializing with our extended PMC family. It was also nice catching up with the people I’ve ridden with over the years. My hope is that the Big Blue Bottle team will be there next year. We’ll be there if we can hit our $20K mark.

Although the food, drink, and socializing was a lot of fun, the best part of the night was listening to the key speakers. The story that struck me most was given by a man named Paul Schaye. Paul was introduced by HH host, Billy Starr, as “an endurance athlete and a 10 year PMC veteran”. Paul’s story began with his numerous athletic accomplishments. He is indeed a true hard-core endurance athlete. He’s ridden in the PMC 10 times, he’s done Paris-Brest-Paris, and he’s done the Mt. Washington hill climb. His presentation included pictures of him competing in these rides, in a timeline format, starting from 2000 and ending on October 2006. The October 2006 picture of him was a scan of his abdomen. It showed a large yellow spot on his liver. It was a tumor. Paul’s scan revealed that he had GIST (Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor).

I think you could’ve heard a pin drop in that room.

I don’t think a single person there last night anticipated that this very “healthy” looking, endurance athlete was going to announce that he had cancer. Paul went on to explain how he was going to challenge his illness head on and went on to say why it is so important to raise funds for cancer research. It was funding from the PMC ($.99 on the $1) that has helped make the Dana-Farber one of the leading treatment centers for GIST in the world. Talk about a motivational kick in the donating arse!

Today there are only 2 drugs approved for the treatment of GIST. Gleevec, made by Novartis, and Sutent, made by Pfizer, our own employer!

I’ve included a link to Paul’s personal website, check out his story. http://paulsposse.com/default.aspx
Last night reminded of an old Pfizer slogan. “The patient is waiting”. Let’s go raise some money for research. The patient is waiting.
PY