What a difference a year makes! As we head into the holidays, we can’t help but reflect on the impact you’ve made. This year, we have had over 2,000 patient visits here at Mary Crowley Cancer Research. That is over 2,000 times your support has touched patients’ lives and advanced potential cancer treatments. One of the patients your generosity has impacted is Richard Lawrence.
Diagnosed with head and neck cancer in 2014, Richard went to see a doctor after much urging from his wife and mother when a knot in his neck didn’t go away for over six months. After surgery and his last radiation appointment on New Year’s Eve of 2014, Richard started 2015 cancer free. Unfortunately, nearly a year later a routine scan showed the cancer had returned. After chemotherapy and a targeted therapy were unsuccessful, Richard was referred to Mary Crowley in September of 2018, where our doctors presented Richard with the trials that would be the best fit for him in the order they were most likely to be effective. Richard was ultimately enrolled on a gene targeted clinical trial, which entails a week of chemotherapy at the start of each month followed by the study drugs for the rest of the month.
In the time he has been on trial, Richard’s cancer has been stable with no continued growth. Richard said that he is grateful for the HOPE that Mary Crowley gives him. “I’ve been sent home twice with 6-12 months to live,” he says. “Here, they’re not giving up on me. I feel like I came for treatment and found friends.”
Richard has found that “cancer doesn’t mean you have to stop living. You can live with it and still have a good life. In some ways, cancer has made us better because it has taught us to be grateful for what we have.”
Your support of Mary Crowley Cancer Research allows us to continue serving patients in this season of gratitude and HOPE for the coming year. Each day we are one step closer to a new cancer treatment that could save lives and bring hope to families, but we can’t do it without you. We hope that you will partner with us to help bring more options to the cancer patients who need them most.
Wishing you all the best this holiday season,
