Pancreatic Weekend

What a weekend. It was something of a pancreatic cancer festival this weekend as there was the PANCAN symposium on Friday, the PANCAN Gala on Saturday, and the Hirshburg LA Cancer Challenge 5K/10K on Sunday. A bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but there was a lot of hope throughout the three days. Sunday morning, in one of the most touching displays of support I have ever seen, a number of friends and family came out and ran for Team Tyler in the LA Cancer Challenge 5K/10K. The people who came out today joined others who have been incredibly generous in their support of pancreatic cancer research. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your incredible gifts of love, friendship, and support. You all are truly amazing people and I just cannot express how grateful I am to each and every one of you.



Great job Team Tyler! We all did incredibly well. I am not sure how much my 45 minute 5K contributed to the group but we ended up winning the team competition in the 5K and coming in 4th in the 10K. Awesome! The team raised over $5,000 for pancreatic cancer research. The running was impressive, but raising that much money was truly remarkable and transcends any mere athletic feat. Thank you all so much! Now back to the running, a special thanks goes out to the ringers who rounded out the team nicely. Well done to Amy (Alex’s girlfriend) who won the women’s 5K, to John Burke who got third in the men’s 5K, to Dan (Alex’s friend) who won the 10K and also to Alex for sort of orchestrating the ringer involvement. Props goes out to Spence for taking Tom down, to the heated competition between Mark Carpenter and Michael (his son-in-law), and to all of you who, like me, now are just winners for getting out there and going the distance. I am sure I will miss a lot of people but it was great to see Rosemarie and Margaret, my aunt and uncle Karen and Terry, the wonderful Lui family, the always fun Sanders’, the incredibly kind Fiduks, my old high school running mate Nate and his lovely wife Becky, John’s great girlfriend Caroline, the always inspiring Carlsons, Markus- the Swiss connection, big Dennis and his wife (great shirts!), and my old running buddy Adam. We even got one of the scientists who PANCAN is supporting to come out with his wife. Thanks Paul and keep up the research. I am sorry for anyone I missed. I will blame my forgetfulness on chemo. A big thanks goes out to my parents. None of this would have happened without you two. Great job on beating your age Dad and for coming in third in your age group Mom! Finally, thank you to my lovely wife. Today she walked with me, stood by me, and cared for me, as she has done over the last year and four months. I doubt how well I would have done without her in either race. With that wonderful little smile of hers beaming back at me, and her soft touch nudging me along, I just keep putting one foot in front of the other on the long road laid out before us. One step at a time, one day at a time, and hopefully, eventually, you get a chance to look back and see how far you have come.

Here are just a few photos from the race. Here is the lead pack getting ready to run. I just wonder if John could have won the men's 5K if he had gotten a bit more sleep.


Like any 5K, there is not only the race to win, but little races throughout the field. Here, Eva and I are trying to take down a walking 8 year old. I do not want to become Al Bundy and resort to stories from my glory days, but I used to be a decent athlete. I could have whooped this kid six ways frm Sunday in my prime. Just for the record, I did manage to outkick him.


I think my mother looks very young and aparently, the race officials did too as she was entered as a 29-year-old. Though she was flattered, she knew that she would be taking home some hardware if she was in her proper age division. Look how happy she is with her medal.Go Mom!


It was a little wierd seeing my name on people's shirts but I got used to it. It was also wierd when people would figure out that I was Tyler. Just sort of brings home the idea that cancer can happen to anyone. The guy on the left was Paul, a scientist that is funded by the research dollars we all raised. It was good to get him out of the lab and into the 5K. He sort of added a needed research element to Team Tyler (not that the trackhouse guys are not all that intellectual, but well, you know...)


As I said before, the pancreatic fun really began on Friday with the symposium. A number of doctors, survivors, caregivers, and volunteers got together to discuss what was new in the world of pancreatic cancer. The talks were very good and quite informative but there was a bit of repetition from last year. Like everything else, progress never comes as fast as you would like. That being said, progress is still being made. PANCAN, the pancreatic cancer action network, uses a fair amount of the money they raise to directly support scientists doing pancreatic cancer research so hopefully one of those guys will come up with something good sometime soon. Needless to say, the day was filled with emotional highs and lows. There are incredibly inspiring stories out there as well as incredibly sad and tragic. Lets just say it is a little nerve racking when it is by no means guaranteed that a survivor you met last year will be there this year. When you see people’s relief that you are still around you start to think that you might be in some pretty serious sh#t. That said, it was great to see a number of people that I had met the year before or had seen in Isacoff’s office. The survivors at this sort of event are really amazing and tend to be the positive optimistic people that you would want to surround yourself with. I am not 100%, but I was pretty sure that I was the youngest guy there and was reminded of that a number of times during the day. Just in case you did not know, I am aware that I am very young and have pancreatic cancer. Some people would come up to me and sort of “tactfully” bring it up as if I were not aware of one or the other facts. It reminded me of this one time waiting in Dr. Isacoff’s office when a nice woman leaned over to my wife and whispered “Ohh, he is so young.” It was not so much that she commented on it, but that she whispered, which caused my wife and I to muse over it later. It seemed as if it was a secret that they were keeping from me. “Ok, now Tyler, lets got to the office again this week for no particular reason. Just sit in the chair and take what is coming to you.” “Ok, dear” I might reply. My wife replied to the nice woman “Its not a secret, he knows he has cancer.” I guess I should not be so rash, especially when talking about cancer, but if you can’t joke about it, this whole survival journey thing gets old pretty quick. We have learned, though, to be very patient with people, especially each other, and to make considerable allowances, as we all get a little crazy sometimes. Anyways, enough ranting. The symposium was tough but very positive.

Saturday night was the Gala and it was quite a party (not exactly a trackhouse party, but then again, it was a different crowd). We (the family) got all dolled up and looked quite sharp, if I do not say so myself. My gorgeous wife was beautiful as always, my mother looked fabulous, and my father and I just did what guys do, showed up. The event was at the Beverly Hilton and consisted of a cocktail hour, dinner, a few talks, and then a fundraising effort. The night was hosted by Ryan Seacrest, though there were very few teenyboppers to woo over him. I tried to get my folks to bid on the African safari, but it just was not in the cards. The talks were inspiring and a lot of money was raised. Go rich people! After the fundraiser, they opened up the dance floor and, while a number of attendees headed for the exits, a number of survivors headed for the music. There is something a little liberating when facing your own mortality. I do not think that this disease imparts amazing dancing skills, but maybe being diagnosed just allows you to release your inhibitions and maybe just thinking they have amazing dancing skills is what took some of the survivors moves to the next level. My moves are still a bit restrained as I have not fully come to grips with my own mortality but Eva and I still had a wonderful time. The song “I Will Survive.” may have been written over heartbreak, but was sung and danced to with more passion by the people on that floor, than I can ever imagine some poor, recently dumped sap ever having. It was a bit amusing, as one of the fundraising efforts sort of went awry. They were selling champagne glasses with “diamonds” in them for a pretty penny. The idea was that one of the glasses had a 12K dollar diamond in it, and the other 200 glasses had cubic zirconias. There was a jeweler on hand but it seemed that the CZs were so good, that he could not make a positive identification on the diamond. I guess everyone was a winner, opps. We stayed until the last song, got some dirty looks from the wait staff we kept there, grabbed a center piece, and called it a night.


Again, thanks so much for everything that everyone did to make it an incredibly inspiring weekend. It was wonderful to see so many of you. Remember, November is pancreatic cancer awareness month so spread the word. Ok, I know that it not the most cheerful subject but maybe just bring it up if there are lulls in the conversation. Also, thanks for sticking with me after I continue to neglect the blog. You all are champs.

Take Care and Live Strong!
Tyler