Why we do this - Jordan's story continues

Jordan Deathe is the Honored Hero for our North Texas team.

He's got t-cell lymphoma. He just turned 22. He's already completed an event with TNT. He's been back in the hospital these past few months and this week he will undergo a bone marrow transplant.

He found a perfect bone marrow match. Jordan and his doctors are very hopeful.

Jordan shares his story via this Web site provided by Caring Bridge; he and his family keep a regularly updated journal of Jordan's progress and status.

I've met Jordan just once at our Summer Team kick-off, just prior to his cancer returning in this current relapse. He's a regular guy. As his writing attests he's also quite extraordinary. Take a few minutes to meet Jordan and consider offering a few words of support. He asks that everyone sign his guest book. It's not too much to ask, don't you think?

Researcher optimistic about cures for all blood cancers

Chris Meehan, reporter for Kalamazoo Gazette, reports on very encouraging news coming from researchers at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (the beneficiary of my fund raising effort).

Notable quotes:

"A goal of curing most types of blood cancer by 2015 is realistic and attainable"

"The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society awarded about $60 million in grants to scientists in 2006."

And how about this for dramatic improvement:

Before Gleevec was introduced more than five years ago... about 50 percent of patients diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia every year did not survive for five years.

Today, because of the drug, which kills cancer cells without also killing healthy cells, 95 percent of the patients with the disease are still alive at the five-year mark...

While no one treatment or drug offers a panacea, real progress is being made. Amazing to think we can speak seriously about "cancer" and "cures" in the same breath.