Team wheels and deals in fight against cancer
Acton resident Dave Christmas was heading to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to donate blood platelets when he passed a homeless woman wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a large red tongue and the words "Lick Cancer."
The T-shirt was one of thousands Christmas has sold to raise money for the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, an annual statewide cycling event that supports cancer research and treatment.
"It was given to [the homeless woman] by someone who bought it at the PMC, and she loves it," Christmas said. "I thought it was a nice gesture and it made her feel good."
Christmas, who began selling the shirts along with temporary tattoos bearing the same logo a decade ago with the help of only a few fellow riders, has seen his team swell to 28 this year.
This weekend, they will join approximately 5,500 cyclists in the two-day ride from Sturbridge to Provincetown. Since its inception in 1980, the event has raised more than $204 million for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Jimmy Fund. Cyclists hope to raise $34 million this year.
Although many riders, including Christmas's team, bike the entire, signature 190-mile course, participants can choose from seven smaller courses of varying length and difficulty. They are required to raise between $1,300 and $4,000, depending on which course they select.
Christmas's team sold 800 to 900 T-shirts at $10 apiece and 1,000 tattoos for $1 each last year, netting more than $5,000 for the Jimmy Fund.
"The idea was to create [merchandise] people could identify with," Christmas said. "And they've been a hit."
Christmas's team typically arrives at the starting line in an old school bus covered in slogans and the logo.
"It really draws our team together," he said of the bus. "We ride it out to Sturbridge and it's a party bus. It really is a lot of fun."
Christmas first biked the event 12 years ago in memory of his friend's brother, a Pan-Massachusetts Challenge biker who died of lung cancer.
"It sounds like a long way to go and there are some killer hills at the very end," he said. "But it's a wonderful feeling. You go by these water stops every 20 miles and see 50 or 100 volunteers, and if you take the time to talk to them, it's amazing some of the stories they have."
Also bicycling on Christmas's team is Carlisle resident Heidi Harring, who rode in the 2005 event despite having a radiation burn from colon cancer treatment.
"The doctor said, 'You'll just have to volunteer this year,' and I said, 'No, I'm not, I'm going to ride,' " she said. "You have to stay positive about it, and that's the only way to get through it."
Besides her own bout with cancer, Harring's mother and mother-in-law have both contracted forms of the disease since 2003.
Hearing stories such as Christmas's and Harring's is a major motivating factor for donors and participants, said Billy Starr, the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge's executive director and founder.
"The human component is at the center of this," he said. "The stories are endless."
Starr started the event with 48 riders after his mother, uncle, and cousin died from cancer in the 1970s.
"I was looking for some way to cope with the grieving process and do something meaningful with my life," said Starr, an avid biker who rides in his event every year. "Biking is a neat sport. There's teamwork and it's an adventure, and I thought I could put at the heart of it fund-raising for a cause close to my life."
The State Police will be well represented in the ride, as 37 troopers will don matching blue cycling shirts, shorts, and helmets for the bike-a-thon, said Lieutenant Bill Coulter, a co-captain of the team.
Coulter, who is biking in the challenge for the first time, was diagnosed with throat cancer three years ago and spent a year undergoing surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy.
"My attitude was just to dig in and win," said the 56-year-old Stoughton resident. "I never had death as an option. It was just a matter of taking it one day at a time until I won."
While Coulter was successful, he said he knows of many other police officers and their families who were less fortunate.
"It's a very important disease to us," he said. "I've known at least 10 state troopers who have died of cancer since I've been a state trooper, so it affects us all."
Also bicycling this weekend is Dr. Howard Shapiro, who has devoted much of his professional life to advancing cancer research and developing instruments to use in poorer countries.
"Instruments typically cost $100,000 or up, and they are relatively large and not portable," said Shapiro, 66, of West Newton. "But because of some of the advances that are happening with consumer electronics, you can now make the instruments cheaper and simpler."
Shapiro's father was among the first doctors to use chemotherapy and radiation to treat the disease; his mother, who died from cancer, was a microbiologist.
"I think I was interested before she was sickened by it, and I was more interested after she was sickened because I knew there was a lot of work that needed to be done," he said.
Shapiro himself was diagnosed with gastric lymphoma in 1991, and a new lymphoma emerged in 2006. In both cases, he was treated with techniques he helped develop.
"Being a patient makes you a better doctor," he said. "It also just makes you think a patient is not a collection of diagnoses - they all have stories and goals and ambitions."
Shapiro, who bicycles to work at his lab in Allston everyday, will participate in the 44-mile Wellesley loop of the challenge.
For more information about the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge or to see a list of some of the riders participating and their stories, visit pmc.org. 