Team Lorraine

Looking for another reason to support Team Lorraine this year? Well look no further than a celebratory post race gathering!

Lorraine at the breakfast after the first annual Team Lorraine MM5K in 2009.

Every year, Team Lorraine has held a post-race brunch at a restaurant where Lorraine shares her gratitude with us all for helping to find a cure for her cancer. Let’s face it, Lorraine looks fabulous now, but turn your mind back to our first walk in 2009, when Lorraine was still so weak that she was unable to walk the route with us.

She is so grateful for this remission and the extra time it is giving her, but she is living on borrowed time. There is still no cure for Multiple Myeloma.

By joining or sponsoring Team Lorraine, you are supporting innovative, life-extending treatments for this incurable cancer, and the research to find a cure for Multiple Myeloma.

Lorraine at the post-walk Team breakfast in 2012

Celebrate your participation and the contribution you have made in helping to Conquer Cancer in Our Lifetime.  Join us after the race for a Breakfast Eggstravaganza full of food, entertainment and fun for the whole family!

Team Lorraine will celebrate our achievement and Lorraine’s continuing remission on June 23, 2013, after walking 5k to fund the innovative research taking place here in Canada. Please help us find a cure:

• Sponsor Team Lorraine
• Join our team and help us raise funds to find a cure.

Together we will conquer cancer in our lifetime. Believe it!

– This post is the forth in a series, Top Five Reasons to Support Team Lorraine in 2013. Watch for reason #1 on June 13.

Top Five Reasons to Support Team Lorraine in 2013: #3

Lorraine is living on borrowed time. She is loving every minute of this remission, but it is just a break from the cancer, not a cure.

Did you know that 2,000 Canadians are newly diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma each year? It may not sound like a lot compared to other cancers, but it is a devastating disease that until recently had no treatment.

Remember when Lorraine was first diagnosed in 2008? She was in constant pain, barely able to walk and her bones were so brittle, they were easily broken. She suffered permanent damage to her spine and was not able to pick up her new born baby. But thanks to an experimental treatment, Lorraine’s cancer was halted. And after several operations, some of the spinal damage was reversed. But she’s living on borrowed time. Lorraine is loving every minute of this remission, but it is just a break from the cancer, not a cure.

The money raised as a member of Team Lorraine funds the Molly and David Bloom Research Chair at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center, a major, international centre for Multiple Myeloma research, on the cutting edge of innovative, life-extending treatments for this treatable, but incurable cancer.

Over the past few years, Bloom Chair Dr. Donna Reece and her team have used funds raised from this MM5K towards improving the outcomes of cancer patients.

In her 2013 annual report, Dr. Reece explains:

There are two routes to pursue the development of new therapies for multiple myeloma. One involves the selection of our Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Myeloma Clinical Research Program as a site for the investigation of new drugs that have been brought into clinical trials by the pharmaceutical industry.

The second, more challenging but more innovative, involves our own development of novel agents that have a solid
laboratory basis for efficacy in a not-for-profit academic setting. This in turn requires 3 critical steps:

1. Identification of a potential vulnerable target in the myeloma cell that will cause its death
2. Validation of that target in laboratory models
3. Introduction of the drug into clinical trials for patients with this disease

Thanks to your generous support, PMHF will be able to obtain patients’ marrow in a more timely manner

Because PMH has been selected as a research centre by pharmaceutical companies, PMH myeloma patients have had access to these agents several years in advance of commercial availability. And when your prognosis is only 3-4 years, every day makes a critical difference.

To find out more about the ways that your support is dramatically changing cancer treamtment in Canada, read the complete report from Dr. Reece.

There are some new treatments which have been very successful in extending lives and hopefully there will soon be a cure. But research is expensive and we need your support.

Team Lorraine will be walking 5k past The Princess Margaret on June 23, 2013, to fund the innovative research taking place here in Canada. Please help us find a cure:

• Sponsor Team Lorraine
• Join our team and help us raise funds to find a cure.

Help us conquer cancer in our lifetime. Believe it!

– This post is the third in a series, Top Five Reasons to Support Team Lorraine in 2013. Watch for reason #2 on June 6.

Top Five Reasons to Support Team Lorraine in 2013: #4

Be a part of history! Join us on June 23 for the inaugural Journey to Conquer Cancer-Run or Walk, a family friendly route that passes by The Princess Margaret offering 5km, 3km and 1km options allowing everyone to BE A PART OF THE JOURNEY.

For the past two years, the MM5K race route did not pass by the hospital and participants didn’t have the opportunity to salute the amazing institution that has extended the life of our beloved Lorraine. But this year, we get to pay tribute to the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, where groundbreaking research advances new life stabilizing drugs through the Molly and David Bloom Chair. And we get to cheer for the patients at PMH who are fighting for their lives. But best of all, we get to do both with Lorraine walking beside us!

When Lorraine was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in 2008 after giving birth to her third child, her prognosis was only three to seven years. After months of treatments and surgeries, Lorraine founded this team to work towards finding a cure for her disease. She’s now enjoying remission and for that, we should thank the Princess Margaret as we pass by on June 23.

Please help team Lorraine by sponsoring a member of the team or join our team and find sponsors to support your walk. Your generosity enables Princess Margaret Hospital to bring more drugs to market at a faster pace for the benefit of patients. By supporting our walk, you improve the lives of myeloma cancer patients and moves us towards our goal to conquer cancer in our lifetime.

– This post is the second in a series, Top Five Reasons to Support Team Lorraine in 2013. Watch for reason #3 on May 28.