Marching On...

Yesterday was the 2nd Annual Karyn Nelson Community team walk for the National Brain Tumor Foundation. It was a total success and I take my hat off to Thet for getting the ball rollng this year, and to everyone else who either donated their precious saturday, their money or both. Our original goal of $1000 was easily surpassed and is probably going to be over $5000 when everything gets counted. A big "hooray" to all of you, I am certain Karyn would have been both proud and moved by the continued show of support.

The weather was fantastic, completely opposite from the cold and fog we had last year. I realized as I was parking the car that this was the beggining of a new tradition for us. It's an event that we will continue to attend until we can no longer walk or until there is no need to raise money because they fouind a cure. There have been some promising developments in the world of brain tumor research and our very own Dr. Andrew Parsa still has 12 patients in his neuro-vaccine clinical trial who are alive (out of 12 who entered). At this point it's still about life extension, but I feel that it will become life preservation in our lifetimes.

That all said, I saw many sad sights throughout the day. There were fresh teams with fresh names on their t-shirts, there were people in wheelchairs and there were a few shaved heads. The one moment that sticks out for me was something that I heard about half way through the walk. Much like the conversation I overheard last year from the seemingly healthy woman at UCSF who had just been diagnosed with a glioblastoma, this was a male voice that came into focus walking behind me. "Well, I had had several clean MRIs and, though I knew it wasn't wise, I felt like I was cured." He went on to say that he started having trouble sleep about 6 weeks ago and a new MRI showed significant tumor growth. To make the proverbial long story short, he had a craniotomy 3 weeks ago and was on medication, chemo and had begun radiation. At that point I turned to see who this was and was a little shocked to see a young, healthy man who couldn't me more than 35. Though the event was quite crowded this year, I ended up seeing him many times after the walk had ended (survivors wear turquoise t-shirts)---in the food line, playing frisbee, etc. It's amazing the lengths that this horrible disease goes.

Of course, in all the sadness, there were many good sights too. First of all, the event was completely packed, I would guess that there were at least twice as many people there this year. Karyn's team found a nice big tree to park under and had a nice picnic while we watched the event and listened to the music. In attendance this year were Thet, Mick and Tika, Beatrice, Sam and Dante, Susan, Reilly and Georgia, Abby, Jack and Fiona (she's cute), Evelyn, me, Aidan and Lieneka. The kids are all a year older now and it was great to see them all playing with their Karyn Community shirts on. I realized that this will be more than just a fundraiser to us as time passes. It will always mark a terrible period of all of our lives and there were many moments where I wished I could just pop over to UCSF to talk to Karyn again like I did last year. It will also be a day where we feel more connected to that terrible time and remember just how much Karyn endured and how much we went through. As time goes on it's easy to let the hustle and bustle of the days get in the way of these important memories. Lastly though it will always be a time for our core group to be together and to see our kids age a year at a time.

To my dearest Karyn, I miss you more than ever, but I promise that we will all keep marching on... together.


~Julian