My Wife's Fight Against Cancer Inspired 38,000 People to Raise Millions for Research
It was 15 years ago this month, but I'll never forget those words. When my wife Jen and I asked her oncologist about our plans to start a family, he calmly replied, "Well, I wouldn't do so unless Dave is prepared to be a single father."
About 50 percent of all people with cancer have a rare type, like the one Jen was fighting.
Time stood still. The danger crystalized — we were in a battle for my beautiful bride's life, and the odds were not in our favor.
We felt every emotion expected. Anger, sadness, confusion, frustration, and especially fear. But we made a very intentional choice to take that fear, put it to the side, and do everything we could to live our lives together to the fullest.
We focused first on Jen's health and learned everything we could about MFH Sarcoma. I was with her every step of the way — for hundreds of medical appointments, six intense surgeries, and twenty different types of chemotherapy. During such a challenging time, our choice to reject fear allowed us to live our best lives. Our careers blossomed, we enjoyed several international vacations, and Jen inspired thousands of fellow patients through her blog and speeches.
When we researched treatment options we learned that Jen was not alone. About 50 percent of all people with cancer have a rare type, like the one Jen was fighting. However, rare cancers don't get the funding they desperately need so effective treatment options are hard to find. The lack of funding felt unfair — and urgent. We didn't worry about everything that can go wrong when starting a new venture. Instead, we jumped in head first and convinced a small group of friends and family to ride stationary bikes with us to raise money for rare cancer research.
Jen Goodman Linn, riding a stationary bike for Cycle for Survival.
(Courtesy David Linn)
From those humble beginnings, Cycle for Survival grew steadily. After starting from scratch, Jen and I ran Cycle for Survival on our own for two years. We quickly realized that if we wanted to help as many people as possible, we needed the best partners. In 2009, we agreed that Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center would take over the ownership of Cycle for Survival and Equinox officially became the Founding Partner. Flash forward to today, and Cycle for Survival has raised more than $220 million! I'm proud that 100% of every donation, yes every penny, goes directly into life-saving rare cancer research within six months of the annual indoor cycling events, which now take place in 17 cities nationwide.
While Cycle for Survival's trajectory was heading straight up, Jen's health struggle was devastatingly swinging up and down. With her incredible spirit and tenacity, Jen would beat the cancer through chemo and surgery, but then it would frustratingly come back again and again. After going into remission six times, it returned with such a vengeance in 2011 that even the world's leading doctors were forced to say, "I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do."
Those were the most difficult words I've ever heard, by far. I hope no other family has to hear these crushing words.
When Jen died soon after, I didn't know what would happen to me, to my life, and to Cycle for Survival. I do remember making two very important choices at the time. First, I chose to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other. It wasn't easy. Tears, pain, and grief would hit at any hour of the day or night. I did have a great support network of family and friends who kept me moving forward. One friend in particular changed the route of her morning runs so that I would join her and start getting back to exercising.
My second key choice was to stay involved with Cycle for Survival. At times, it was an excruciatingly difficult decision because I felt the depth of my loss each and every time I stepped into one of the events. However, it was also rewarding and energizing because I could see firsthand how many people it was helping, even though it was too late for Jen.
I began to travel across the country with the Cycle for Survival staff. My hope was to spread the word about rare cancers; along the way I met a lot of wonderful people who shared their stories with me. What I soon realized is that each of us faces obstacles in our lives. For me, it was losing the person who I wanted to spend my life with. For others, it might be challenges with their kids or in their professional lives. The common theme is that we don't have control over the fact that we have to face these challenges. But the biggest lesson I've learned is that we very much do have a choice in how we react.
I made the choice to do everything I can to help rare cancer patients and their families and it has been transformative and healing for me. The small group who rode in the first Cycle for Survival event has grown into a powerful movement of nearly 40,000 riders making a real difference. If Jen were diagnosed today, there are new treatments available– including genomic sequencing, targeted therapies, and immunotherapies – that could help her. Those weren't even options a short time ago. That's the result of funding research.
A recent Cycle for Survival event shows the passion and power of the community.
(Courtesy David Linn)
I also want to share one more choice I made. Remember that friend who changed the route of her morning runs so I could start exercising after Jen died? Well, over the years friendship grew into love, and we're now building a home together and can't wait to see what the future holds for us.
So with all that in mind I ask – when you face those inevitable challenges in your life, how will you choose to react? Remember that even in the midst of hopelessness, you can find choices. Those will be the decisions that define and guide you.
After his grandmother’s dementia diagnosis, one man invented a snack to keep her healthy and hydrated.
On a visit to his grandmother’s nursing home in 2016, college student Lewis Hornby made a shocking discovery: Dehydration is a common (and dangerous) problem among seniors—especially those that are diagnosed with dementia.
Hornby’s grandmother, Pat, had always had difficulty keeping up her water intake as she got older, a common issue with seniors. As we age, our body composition changes, and we naturally hold less water than younger adults or children, so it’s easier to become dehydrated quickly if those fluids aren’t replenished. What’s more, our thirst signals diminish naturally as we age as well—meaning our body is not as good as it once was in letting us know that we need to rehydrate. This often creates a perfect storm that commonly leads to dehydration. In Pat’s case, her dehydration was so severe she nearly died.
When Lewis Hornby visited his grandmother at her nursing home afterward, he learned that dehydration especially affects people with dementia, as they often don’t feel thirst cues at all, or may not recognize how to use cups correctly. But while dementia patients often don’t remember to drink water, it seemed to Hornby that they had less problem remembering to eat, particularly candy.
Where people with dementia often forget to drink water, they're more likely to pick up a colorful snack, Hornby found. alzheimers.org.uk
Hornby wanted to create a solution for elderly people who struggled keeping their fluid intake up. He spent the next eighteen months researching and designing a solution and securing funding for his project. In 2019, Hornby won a sizable grant from the Alzheimer’s Society, a UK-based care and research charity for people with dementia and their caregivers. Together, through the charity’s Accelerator Program, they created a bite-sized, sugar-free, edible jelly drop that looked and tasted like candy. The candy, called Jelly Drops, contained 95% water and electrolytes—important minerals that are often lost during dehydration. The final product launched in 2020—and was an immediate success. The drops were able to provide extra hydration to the elderly, as well as help keep dementia patients safe, since dehydration commonly leads to confusion, hospitalization, and sometimes even death.
Not only did Jelly Drops quickly become a favorite snack among dementia patients in the UK, but they were able to provide an additional boost of hydration to hospital workers during the pandemic. In NHS coronavirus hospital wards, patients infected with the virus were regularly given Jelly Drops to keep their fluid levels normal—and staff members snacked on them as well, since long shifts and personal protective equipment (PPE) they were required to wear often left them feeling parched.
In April 2022, Jelly Drops launched in the United States. The company continues to donate 1% of its profits to help fund Alzheimer’s research.
Last week, researchers at the University of Oxford announced that they have received funding to create a brand new way of preventing ovarian cancer: A vaccine. The vaccine, known as OvarianVax, will teach the immune system to recognize and destroy mutated cells—one of the earliest indicators of ovarian cancer.
Understanding Ovarian Cancer
Despite advancements in medical research and treatment protocols over the last few decades, ovarian cancer still poses a significant threat to women’s health. In the United States alone, more than 12,0000 women die of ovarian cancer each year, and only about half of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer survive five or more years past diagnosis. Unlike cervical cancer, there is no routine screening for ovarian cancer, so it often goes undetected until it has reached advanced stages. Additionally, the primary symptoms of ovarian cancer—frequent urination, bloating, loss of appetite, and abdominal pain—can often be mistaken for other non-cancerous conditions, delaying treatment.
An American woman has roughly a one percent chance of developing ovarian cancer throughout her lifetime. However, these odds increase significantly if she has inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. Women who carry these mutations face a 46% lifetime risk for ovarian and breast cancers.
An Unlikely Solution
To address this escalating health concern, the organization Cancer Research UK has invested £600,000 over the next three years in research aimed at creating a vaccine, which would destroy cancerous cells before they have a chance to develop any further.
Researchers at the University of Oxford are at the forefront of this initiative. With funding from Cancer Research UK, scientists will use tissue samples from the ovaries and fallopian tubes of patients currently battling ovarian cancer. Using these samples, University of Oxford scientists will create a vaccine to recognize certain proteins on the surface of ovarian cancer cells known as tumor-associated antigens. The vaccine will then train that person’s immune system to recognize the cancer markers and destroy them.
The next step
Once developed, the vaccine will first be tested in patients with the disease, to see if their ovarian tumors will shrink or disappear. Then, the vaccine will be tested in women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations as well as women in the general population without genetic mutations, to see whether the vaccine can prevent the cancer altogether.
While the vaccine still has “a long way to go,” according to Professor Ahmed Ahmed, Director of Oxford University’s ovarian cancer cell laboratory, he is “optimistic” about the results.
“We need better strategies to prevent ovarian cancer,” said Ahmed in a press release from the University of Oxford. “Currently, women with BRCA1/2 mutations are offered surgery which prevents cancer but robs them of the chance to have children afterward.
Teaching the immune system to recognize the very early signs of cancer is a tough challenge. But we now have highly sophisticated tools which give us real insights into how the immune system recognizes ovarian cancer. OvarianVax could offer the solution.”