Breakaway Mile Champion & cancer survivor Dee Williams leads the Breakaway Mile in style!

Breakaway from Cancer (BFC) is made up of four nonprofits, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, the Cancer Support Community, the Patient Advocate Foundation and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, who offer a variety of resources for people touched by cancer. Each organization was highlighted during one of the four Breakaway Miles, a special walk to recognize cancer survivors worldwide. During each Breakaway Mile, survivors, caregivers, health care professionals and supporters joined Amgen and BFC in a walk that honored a designated cancer champion who has made a difference in the cancer community. Saturday was the Prevent Cancer Foundation’s Breakaway Mile in Livermore, CA and we were proud to have cancer survivor Dee Williams as our Breakaway Champion. Dee is a twelve year breast cancer survivor who actively volunteers with several organizations that support others in their journey through cancer treatment and recovery. Read about all of the Breakaway Champions here.

Foundation Board Member & Amgen Director of Advocacy, Kathryn West @ the Breakaway from Cancer Tent.

All eight days of the Tour were packed with people, from avid cycling enthusiasts to curious locals. Many onlookers stood along the route with encouraging posters for their favorite riders, some came all the way from Europe and Australia to follow the Tour, while others were first-timers who wanted to witness this big, action-packed event in their community. Working together as a team, the BFC partners welcomed everyone to our BFC tent to provide cancer resources from prevention to survivorship. I had many wonderful conversations with people who shared their cancer story and were very appreciative of the work we are doing to Stop Cancer Before it Starts! Many of our visitors were surprised to learn there was so much you could do to prevent cancer, so it was great to see those visitors walk away with important health information, resources and a new outlook on taking better care of themselves and their family.

Thank you to California, Amgen, AEG, our BFC partners and to everyone who works toward saving lives through cancer prevention and early detection!

Prevent Cancer Foundation’s Carolyn (Bo) Aldige (center) w/ Amgen Exec. Director of Research, Dineli Wickramsinghe & Amgen VP & General Manager of Oncology, Bob Azelby.

Amgen started the BFC initiative in 2005 to promote awareness of a variety of cancer prevention and survivorship resources. The BFC is comprised of four cancer-related nonprofits, Prevent Cancer Foundation, Cancer Support Community (CSC), Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) and National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS). The BFC partners participate in the AToC race each year to distribute valuable resources and information at the Breakaway from Cancer booth and walk with cancer survivors and caregivers as part of the Breakaway Mile marches.

Prevent Cancer Foundation Staff, Cheryssa Jensen & Carolyn Schmidt travel w/ Breakaway from Cancer at the Amgen Tour of California

The AToC kicked off the race with festivities in Escondido, California on Friday, May 10. The day included an excellent gala celebration, a boa constrictor named Ruby from the San Diego Zoo and an introduction to all 16 teams competing in the race. Emcees Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, notable commentators for the Tour de France, introduced accomplished riders from around the globe including AToC winners, Tour de France finalists and Olympian medalists.

The first stage of the race began and ended in Escondido on Sunday where the cyclists competed in a 102.6 mile course containing an 11,132-feet elevation gain. The second stage’s course was even longer at 124.3 miles and ended in a steep climb toward the finish line in Palm Springs where it was a hot and dry 106 degrees. The eighth stage concludes the race on Sunday, May 19 in Santa Rosa. Follow this exciting tour at www.amgentourofcalifornia.com or on twitter @AmgenTourofCali or @BreakawayCancer.

Along with the four BFC partners, the Prevent Cancer Foundation will be traveling with the Breakaway from Cancer tent, as part of the Lifestyle Festival, located near the end of each stage. If you’re in California come visit us at the Breakaway from Cancer tent to receive a variety of free resources and fun giveaways like sunglasses, key chains and frisbees! I applaud these amazing athletes and the inspiring cancer survivors who are working as a team to Stop Cancer Before it Starts!

Actor Patrick Dempsey and his sister Mary Dempsey founded the Dempsey Center after their mother was treated for cancer at CMMC.  The mission of the Dempsey Center is to improve the quality of life for individuals, families, and communities impacted by cancer through support, education, integrative medicine, outreach and prevention. The center staff strives to embrace the whole person using a collaborative and holistic approach.  They also outreach into the Auburn/Lewiston community with messages of prevention and risk reduction, often targeting underserved populations.

Prevent Cancer Foundation and Breakaway from Cancer had the opportunity to contribute to the excellent work that the Dempsey Center is doing by providing additional information to attendees about prevention, financial assistance, supportive care and survivorship.  We talked to many of the more than 4,300 participants about the campaign and the resources that our organization provides in advocacy, research, community outreach and education.

Breakaway from Cancer also honored the work of an outstanding survivor and advocate in the community, Kristin Short.  Kristin is a singer/songwriter, mother of three, and two-year breast cancer survivor from Norway, Maine.  She has made a significant impact on the community with her passion for music through performances at several benefit concerts for the Dempsey Center. She also provides a comforting presence to those going through cancer treatment, traveling from Norway to Lewiston offering encouragement to those who have little support.

As always, the community welcomed Breakaway from Cancer and Prevent Cancer Foundation with enthusiasm and interest, sharing with us their own stories of prevention, survivorship, heroism and loss.  Thank you, as always, to the community for welcoming us and supporting the work of our organizations, and to the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope and Healing for another successful event to raise funding and bring the community together to educate, empower, and celebrate the lives and passion of so many!

(From L. to R.) Stu Baker, Prevent Cancer President and Founder Bo Aldigé and Bob Baker during the Amgen Tour of California

It all started with the offer to share my story with the Prevent Cancer Foundation about how I overcame colon cancer and use bicycling as an awareness-raising tool. I spent half my life battling Inflammatory Bowel Disease before I got cancer and didn’t get back into cycling until after I had my entire colon removed and replaced with an ileostomy. That was nearly ten years ago and I’m thrilled to have regained my health and be back in the saddle. What followed was an invitation to attend the Tour of California and since I have family there, I had to go.

After a visit with Mom for Mothers Day, my brother Stu, his wife Molly and I headed up to Santa Rosa for the first day and immediately got swept up in the excitement of the Tour with front row viewing at the Breakaway from Cancer hospitality tent. During the race we got to mingle with other cancer survivors and walk in the Breakaway from Cancer Mile to celebrate survivorship. What an honor to be part of such a moving experience right before the build up to the finish of the race. To be in such proximity to world-class cyclists, hundreds of survivors and all the people who work so hard to prevent cancer and advocate for cancer survivorship…somebody pinch me!

The next three days followed suit as we traveled around and got more familiar with where to be as the racers flew by. We saw some starts, climbs and all four finishes and even got to go up on the podium stage for one of the races. In between the start and finish we had fun visiting the Lifestyle Festival looking for swag, getting autographs and pictures and enjoying the festive atmosphere. Thanks for a fun and meaningful adventure; hope we can make it next year!

Editor’s Note: Bob Baker is a cancer survivor, advocate and avid cyclist.

This year, you can help us choose the four individuals that we will honor along the Amgen Tour of California professional cycling route.  Just visit Breakaway from Cancer’s website to read each nominee’s story, and be sure to select your favorite from each host city. Winners will be given VIP access at the 2012 Amgen Tour of California and will be honored on stage. They will also lead the Breakaway Mile, a walk which honors cancer survivors worldwide, through their community. For those of you who will be in California between May 13th and 20th and would like to participate in a Breakaway Mile can register here.  Be sure to sign up now, as space is limited to the first 150 registrants per city.

We also wanted to introduce you to Bob Baker – a Prevent Cancer Foundation cancer champion!  Many labels can be applied to Bob – husband, father of three, cyclist.  Each is admirable on its own, but it is his fourth label, cancer survivor, that makes everything else all the more impressive. Bob was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, a painfully chronic disease that produces open sores in the intestine, at the young age of 15 and, like many with UC, eventually developed colon cancer. Twenty-seven years after his UC diagnosis, Bob underwent surgery to have his large intestine removed, and now lives life fully with a permanent ileostomy.

Since his complete recovery 8 years ago Bob has volunteered his time as a patient advocate sharing his story in the hope that it educates and inspires. His involvement includes: visiting members of Congress and the President at the White House, modeling in a colon cancer awareness calendar and runway fashion shows, leading support groups, visiting and counseling patients, public speaking and serving on the board of directors of The United Ostomy Associations of America, Inc (UOAA). Seeing the need to help new patients through recovery from ostomy surgery, Bob created and produced the DVD “Living with an Ostomy” which is widely used to address some of the common fears associated with this life saving surgery.

Bob also uses cycling to raise awareness about colon cancer, competing in races such as The Phoenix Tour, a grueling 3000 mile tour that takes place over 3 months.  Bob uses every opportunity to spread awareness about Colon Cancer, in hopes that others will take their health into their own hands and get screened.

Bob is a true Breakaway from Cancer champion – making a difference in prevention policy, education and survivorship every day!

As part of the campaign, we will be honoring Individuals from four communities in California during the2012 Amgen Tour of California.  You can now nominate yourselves or others to be a Breakaway from Cancer^® Champion.

Four individuals – one from each of the 2012 Amgen Tour of California communities of Santa Rosa, Livermore, Clovis, and Los Angeles – who have made a positive impact and acted as an inspiration to those affected by cancer within their community will be selected as the Breakaway from Cancer Champions.

The Breakaway from Cancer Champions will be honored and have special access at the 2012 Amgen Tour of California (May 13-May 20). Full criteria and information about nominating or becoming a Breakaway from Cancer Champion is available at http://www.breakawayfromcancer.com/champion.

Nominations are open from March 2 – 23, 2012.  We hope that you can honor the work of someone who has made a difference by nominating someone from these communities.

And while we can only highlight individuals from these four communities during the tour in May, we know that there are champions across the country that have made a difference through advocacy, education and fundraising.  If you are not from one of these four California communities, we’d still like to hear about the cancer champions in your life.  Please share any stories that you’d like to with me by email.  We’ll highlight the good work of our Prevent Cancer champions throughout the year and include them in our digital and print communications outreach. We look forward to hearing from you!

About the Amgen Tour of California

The 7^th annual Amgen Tour of California will be held from May 13 – 20, 2012. It is America’s most successful cycling race, and is one of the only road races in the country to be listed as a UCI 2.HC event on the international professional cycling calendar. Hundreds of elite athletes from across the globe gather each year to bring an end to cancer.

About Breakaway from Cancer®

Founded in 2005 by Amgen, Breakaway from Cancer is a national initiative to increase awareness of important resources available to people affected by cancer – from prevention through survivorship. Breakaway from Cancer is a collaboration between Amgen and four nonprofit partner organizations: Prevent Cancer Foundation, Cancer Support Community (formerly known as The Wellness Community), Patient Advocate Foundation, and National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.

The reaction of the visitors to the colon is always different. Many of the younger visitors scrunch their nose and say “yuck.” Other young visitors think it is a moon bounce and run through it repeatedly. But I am always most touched by the adults who stop, pick up information about colon cancer prevention and screening, and take time to share their personal stories. I’ve heard from so many men and women whose lives have been saved because polyps were removed before they became cancer or because they were found in the early stages of cancer, enabling successful treatment. They talk about their own experiences with colonoscopy. “It was not nearly as bad as I thought” is a common phrase used, and visitors talk about how they encourage – sometimes insist – that  their family and friends get screened.

Kerry McAullife (NCCS), Lisa Hughes (Prevent Cancer Foundation), Brendan Bietry (PAF), Maria Smith (PAF), actor Patrick Dempsey, Jamilla Williams (PAF) and Stuart Arbuckle (Amgen)

We also spoke with thousands of visitors at our Breakaway from Cancer booth, and along with our partners, distributed hundreds of brochures on cancer prevention, information on how to become an advocate, and the resources available through the Breakaway from Cancer campaign partner organizations.

It was a beautiful weekend to promote health, wellness, philanthropy and disease education in a welcoming and friendly environment. Congratulations to the Lewiston/Auburn community and our friends at the Patrick Dempsey Center for Hope and Healing on another successful Dempsey Challenge!

While much of the meeting focused on new therapies and strategies in treatment – as you might expect when you get so many oncologists together in the same city- there was significant news in prevention as well, ranging from discussions of biomarkers and other novel approaches to prevention and risk reduction.  Probably the biggest news with respect to prevention was the success in clinical studies of a hormone-blocking drug for reduction of breast cancer risk.  This trial represents the first time that a drug within this category of aromatase inhibitors has been tested in healthy women for prevention of breast cancer as opposed to treatment.

Study leader Dr. Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital, reported on results of the prevention study involving 4,560 women from the U.S., Canada, Spain and France. They had at least one risk factor — being 60 or older, a prior breast abnormality or pre-invasive cancer, or a high score on a scale that takes into account family history and other things.

Results showed a 65 percent reduction in risk for those on the drug vs. the placebo, offering Page 1 of 1millions of women at higher-than-usual risk of breast cancer a new option for preventing the disease, perhaps with less negative side effects than other breast cancer chemopreventive options.

And on the lighter side of the meeting, Prevent Cancer Foundation was pleased be the beneficiary of a concert at the House of Blues in Chicago, featuring the Oncotones, a band consisting of several professional musicians accompanied by members of the oncology community including Prevent Cancer Foundation board member Kathryn West.  The concert benefits our Breakaway from Cancer campaign, raising more than $8,000 for Prevent Cancer and our Breakaway from Cancer partners.

Additional news from the ASCO annual meeting can be found on the meeting website.

We’ve celebrated four cancer champions so far this tour, with one more to go on Sunday. They are inspirations to their community and to all of us, and they represent not just themselves but the HUNDREDS of cancer survivors and caregivers that we’ve spoken with in the Breakaway from Cancer booth in the five cities we’ve visited so far. In our Breakaway mile cities, five along this year’s tour route, we are joined by an army of survivors, their loved ones and caregivers, and proudly walk with these men and women in our Breakaway from Cancer mile down the course and across the same finish line that the cyclists cross. It is an honor to be part of this team, with survivors and their loved ones, and with our national non-profit partners that offer expertise and resources to the public.

I had the pleasure of seeing a familiar face today, Lee, and his wife who I first met in Philadelphia two years ago when he visited the Breakaway from Cancer booth. Lee is an avid cyclist, a cancer survivor, and he often uses the resources of Breakaway from Cancer.  Lee is just one example of why we are out on the road, educating the public about the resources that we can offer in the cancer continuum.

I can’t wait to get back out on the road again tomorrow in Solvang. Thanks to all of our cancer champions, our hosts cities, and to everyone that has taken time to talk with us along the way!