"I'm not afraid"
Amid these extraordinary changes are a few constants. Cancer still takes an emotional toll on patients and families. The Institute continually strives to provide compassionate, respectful care and to treat the "total patient" (see related story: Lean on me), and Dana-Farber scientists can still be found toiling into the night.
Survival rates for virtually all forms of cancer have climbed in recent years, according to the American Cancer Society. Between 1975 and 2002, the percentage of total patients alive after five years grew from 51 to 66 percent and rose even more steeply (from 58 to 79 percent) among children under age 15. For Candy Oyler's cancer, osteosarcoma, five-year survival rates are up to 90 percent for patients whose disease responds well to chemotherapy.
Yet there is still much work to do. The Society predicts more than 1.4 million new cases (not counting some skin and other cancers), and nearly 560,000 deaths from the disease in 2007 – representing one-quarter of the nation's deaths. Five-year survival rates for some cancers, such as lung, liver, pancreas, and stomach, are still very low, and there are disturbing differences in cancer occurrence and outcomes among racial and ethnic groups. Prevention and early detection measures could save more lives.
Thanks to progress made in the lab and clinic, more than 10 million people in the U.S. are living with and beyond cancer, and some cancers can be managed as chronic illnesses. But many survivors have long-term physical, emotional, and practical consequences, from organ damage to learning challenges to trouble obtaining health insurance.
Oyler faces a variety of obstacles: She wears a leg prosthesis, and she takes several heart medications that trigger side effects. Her health is monitored by the Perini Family Survivors' Center at Dana-Farber and by one of her original Jimmy Fund Clinic oncologists, Allen Goorin, MD. Despite her setbacks, Oyler works for an organization that offers information technology services to clients in the United States and connects disadvantaged and disabled citizens in Southeast Asia with jobs, skills, and a better future. She has leadership roles in her church, the Jimmy Fund Council of Western Massachusetts, and other causes. And she lives "in the moment."
"People look at me and say, 'How can you be happy about this? Look what's happened in your life.' But I truly am happy because I'm grateful to be here to share my story," she told participants in this summer's Swim Across America event in Boston to benefit the Perini Center. "With all the efforts being made at Dana-Farber right now, I'm not afraid of getting cancer again," Oyler said. "Because I know my experience has been that I get it, we take care of it, and then I get to live life."
