Pancreatic Cancer UK Pancreatic Cancer UK Striving for Survival - Working for Improvements in Patient Treatment, Support and Care
During June 2004 Dr Gwyn Ballard cycled about 3100 miles across the USA from Los Angeles, California to Hamden, Connecticut. The ride was dedicated to his brother Dr John Ballard who died of pancreatic cancer at age 50, 27months after diagnosis of inoperable cancer in the body of the pancreas. The ride started on Sunday 30th May at about 12noon from LAX and will take 26 days. This was a tight schedule and was a race against time.
Route of Bike Ride
The ride (see map below) was planned to have five phases.
On route Gwyn wrote a diary of his epic journey and took some photographs but there was no time for site-seeing!
The planned itinerary can be seen by clicking here
On route Gwyn should be leaving some stickers saying:
If you find one please email us to let us know that he has passed your way and we will post some information here.
Progress
Sunday May 30th
Three of John's former colleagues from JPL, who were also all postgraduate D.Phil students from the Department of Atmospheric Physics, Oxford, attempted to meet Gwyn on Sunday 30th May at Dockweiler Beach, LA to wave Gwyn off on the start of his coast to coast ride. Unfortunately they missed him despite waiting for 3 hours. They think they may have been so busy reminiscing that they didn't spot Gwyn cycle up and as they had not met before didn't spot each other!
Photo taken on May 30th and posted July 2nd - Gwyn says:
"Self photograph, taken at a roadside marker in Brea Canyon commemorating Gaspar de Portola, an 18thC Portugese explorer in the employ of Spain who passed that way on July 31, 1769.
http://www.sandiegohistory.org/bio/portola/portola.htm
Brea Canyon provides an easy route through one of the many small mountain groups that subdivide the Los Angeles Basin, about 35 miles due east of Los Angeles International Airport, starting point of the ride.
I'm wearing my PANCAN sun-visor, an indespensible piece of equipment equally suited to shading the sun and to keeping salty run-off from my hair out of my eyes during rainstorms. As it turned out, I saw a lot more rain than sun on this crossing."
Sunday June 6th
Gwyn rang his brother in the UK to report that he had reached the Rockies after cycling about 900 miles in 7 days. He had also been waiting at Dockweiler Beach the previous Sunday and thought the others hadn't turned up. It was obviously too optimistic to think that people who hadn't met before could meet up without using a mobile phone!
Friday June 18th
The wonders of modern technology. Found this posted on the Johns Hopkins Pancreatic Cancer Fundraiser discussion board:
"Made it to Ohio : Well your brother inlaw used our barn to shelter from the rain. We are in Pandora Ohio about 40 miles west of Tiffin. So he's well on the way to reach his goal. He set out for PA early this morning. Good luck to him on his journey from a fellow Brit. Dan Joyce and Family ". I had thought of phones and email for keeping in contact but hadn't thought of the discussion board! So it looks as though he is just about on schedule.
Sunday June 20th
Gwyn rang his brother to say that all was going well and he had reached Sheffield, Pennsylvania. He had done 200miles on one day. He expects to finish in the next 3 days as he has only about 300miles to go!
Wednesday June 23rd
Bike ride finished and Gwyn achieved his aim of completing it before his 56th birthday on June 24th. The weather was appalling with torrential rain. He ran out of stickers on route and most got drenched in the rain. He ended up under water one night on route when a hollow he had
sheltered in turned out to be a drainage ditch which filled up when it
poured with rain! On other nights there was continuous lightning cloud to cloud overhead. The night
he sheltered in the barn turned out to be one of the few dry nights! I think
he is a bit more cheerful now after talking to me. He now has a long beard
apparently (a friend on the Johns Hopkins board from Australia has likened this journey to Forrest Gump! She had already said " I keep thinking of Forrest Gump in the scene where he is running across America....only a lot more point to it" Now she has added "he must look a bit like Forrest Gump now...good on him" ). He slept on the edge of the south rim of the Grand Canyon when he got there and
wrote a poem about his brother that he will send soon. The most he did in one day was 190 miles. He
dropped in weight from 184 - 169 lbs on route.
He will send photos when they have been developed. Well done Gwyn!
Due to his hectic and unpredictable schedule it wasn't possible to meet up with any of the PanCAN groups on route but many in the East of the USA had been hoping to meet him. We thank them for their enthusiasm.
Thursday July 1st
Report from Gwyn:" Sensation is returning to my feet (numbed by pedal pressure), and to my thumbs (handlebar vibration). I continue to have thunderstorm nightmares, however. They were very violent, and clearly left an impression on my nervous system, rather like shell-shock I suppose. I lost 16 pounds on the trip; 170 pounds at the end, exactly what I predicted. Very thin. The challenge now is not to eat all day."
The full description of the bikeride and the poem can be read by clicking here
Motivation
June 2004 will see the third anniversary of the diagnosis of John's cancer. John did unusually well as his cancer responded to some degree to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but treatment options were limited and eventually no more could be done beyond pain management. Much more research is needed to find better means of early diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer. We want to use this journey to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer in the USA and UK, and to raise funds for research.
Pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in Europe and USA. It is very difficult to diagnose and extremely difficult to treat. The 7000 cases which present each year in the UK have a median survival of four to six months and a five year survival of less than 1%. On average, less than 10% of patients have their disease caught early enough for it to be removed surgically and surgery offers the best chance of cure. Sadly, the majority of people present with advanced disease which has spread beyond the pancreas and can't be operated on. Chemotherapy is offered to these patients with a view to improving quality and quantity of life.There are 28,000 deaths per year in the USA. More information can be found on the need for better treatment and research at http://www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk/PCMotivation.htm
Aims
To use the bike ride to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer and the need for more research. In particular:
In the UK we promoted the website http://www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk which was developed to provide a central resource of information on pancreatic cancer in the UK for patients, their family and friends and GPs, to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer and stimulate more research into better diagnosis and treatment, support and care. The web-site celebrated its first anniversary in June 2004. This now forms the web-site of the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK dedicated to combatting pancreatic cancer through research, information, support and awareness.
As at that stage Pancreatic Cancer UK was not yet a registered charity the ride was used to raise funds through CORE's Digestive Cancer Campaign Programme for a joint research project in the UK between the research groups at the University of Liverpool and St Barts. That is Professor Lemoine's team at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Centre at Barts and the London and Professor Neoptolemos' team at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
Money can now be donated online or through fundraising events to directly support the work of Pancreatic Cancer UK . email us fro further information.
Also in the UK we promoted the educational work of the professional organization the Pancreatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland . The specialists who belong to the Pancreatic Society are working to improve outcomes for patients suffering from pancreatic disease and they have been exceptionally supportive of the work of Pancreatic Cancer UK .
In the USA we promoted the activities of PanCAN and the work of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions on fighting pancreatic cancer. The foundation of the USA based PanCAN five years ago and the UK based Pancreatic Cancer UK in November 2002 came through relatives of pancreatic cancer patients meeting through the web based discussion board on pancreatic cancer set up by Johns Hopkins University. The founders of Pancreatic Cancer UK were inspired by the work on awareness, patient support and fundraising in the USA undertaken by PanCAN and decided to provide something similar for the UK.
Photographs:
Gwyn and John in the UK in June 2003 (2 years after diagnosis) on the Ridgeway above the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory where John worked, at Merton College, Oxford where they were both undergraduates, and Greys Court, Oxfordshire.
The bike ride starts at Los Angeles where John worked as a post-doc at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena in 1979-1981 (below) after leaving Oxford on completion of his D.Phil in Atmospheric Physics
John (right) and some JPL buddies hiking on the road to the Park/Observatory on Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains.
page last updated 30th March 2008
page first created 21st May 2004