WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon

Head coach Bruce Cassidy and Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins join Glenn, Lou, and Christian on the second day of the 16th annual WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon.

Austin was diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma PTLD in April 2017. This is a rare, aggressive form of Burkitt lymphoma which results from the immunosuppression that is required following an organ transplant. In 2011, when Austin was 3 years old, he had a severe E.coli complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome which led to kidney failure, so he underwent a kidney transplant. Austin recovered from the successful transplant and had been doing well for a few years, but in April 2017, he began to complain of pain from urinating. The pain was so severe he collapsed at school. Austin’s parents, Ben and Cortney, rushed him to the hospital and insisted that he have scans done – the scans revealed a baseball-sized mass near his bladder and another mass in his liver. Further testing and a biopsy determined that Austin had developed Burkitt lymphoma PTLD as result of his earlier liver transplant. Austin’s family was moving from LA to Boston at the same time he was diagnosed, so they decided to pursue treatment at Dana-Farber. Austin then had 4 rounds of intense chemotherapy, including 8 lumbar punctures, and had to be hospitalized for each round. Between the beginning of May through the first week of July, he spent more than 50 days in the hospital – but Austin just completed treatment. Cortney says that their family is very grateful for the Dana-Farber treatment team’s swift, smart and strategic treatment plan for Austin. They couldn’t imagine a better place for him to be treated than Dana-Farber, which is one of the only hospitals with PTLD specialists. Austin attends Lincoln Street Elementary and enjoys Pokémon, baseball, and Minecraft. Austin recently met Brock Holt during Brock’s visit to the Jimmy Fund Clinic –they sent a selfie to Dustin Pedroia, Austin’s favorite Red Sox player! His family includes his mom Cortney, dad Ben, sister Emma, 9, and brother Henry, 3.

Lyndsay will be singing God Bless America tonight. At the age of 29, while pregnant, Lyndsay started experiencing sharp, persistent knee pain. She was eventually diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, right after she gave birth to her first child. She had a 12-hour operation on November 2012 where the cancer was removed along with part of her femur. The bone was replaced with a donor bone and a plate and many screws were put in to secure it. Lyndsay was unable to walk for almost 8 months. Her cancer was removed successfully following the surgery, and today she is cancer free. Lyndsay continues to have surgeries to help with complications from the treatment, most recently in July. She is married to her husband Jim and they have two sons, Mason, 5, and Cameron, 2. Her parents Rick and Betsy have been her caregivers as well. She is also very close to her brother Jonathan who recently moved back home after living in California. Lyndsay’s hobbies include writing, listening to music and hanging out with family and friends. She is a drama teacher and administrative assistant for Bright Start After School in Arlington and she is getting ready to start her 5th year of teaching.

Member of the Impossible Dream team and former chairman of the Jimmy Fund, Mike Andrews joins Glenn, Lou, and Christian on the second day of the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon.

Scott was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in December 2012 after suffering through terrible bone and back pain for more than a year. Scott immediately sought a second opinion from Dana-Farber. Patients’ reviews and research indicated that Dr. Anderson is the “best in the business” and that Dana-Farber is a leader in multiple myeloma. At Dana-Farber, Scott was put on an aggressive combination of 3 different chemotherapy medications before he became a self-donor for a stem cell transplant. His body responded well to the transplant and he is now in remission with monitoring and maintenance therapy. Scott has been married for almost 20 years to his wife Tina and they have 2 girls, Cady, 14 and Sophia, 11. He said that at the time of his diagnosis, his girls were 6 and 9 years old, respectively, so this was an incredibly devastating and emotional diagnosis for such a young family. As he thinks of how overwhelming those first days were, he is now very grateful that he found Dana-Farber. He wants listeners to know that “you don’t need a miracle to do really well with multiple myeloma but we do need more therapies because it’s still a really challenging disease. Give Dr. Anderson and Dana-Farber the tools they need to continue making progress!” Scott works in IT for a bank in Connecticut and enjoys playing the guitar, watching movies, and spending quality time with his family.

Dr. Anderson graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical School, trained in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and completed hematology, medical oncology, and tumor immunology training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He serves as chief of the Division of Hematologic Neoplasia, director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, and vice chair of the Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine at Dana-Farber. In his four decades of practice and research, including 32 years at Dana-Farber, Anderson has played a central role in transforming myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow, from a near immediate death sentence to, in many cases, a chronic, manageable illness. From the 1970s through the ‘90s, not a single new myeloma drug made it into clinical practice. But during the last decade, Anderson has helped shepherd multiple new drugs from laboratory bench through regulatory approval and to the patient bedside. He is both encouraged and inspired by Scott’s commitment to personal health and advocacy for future advancement within the field of multiple myeloma.

Lisa started at the Jimmy Fund Clinic more than 25 years ago. Lisa’s father had been treated at Dana-Farber and passed away when she was 16. Lisa and her team are responsible for the day-to- day activities in the Jimmy Fund Clinic and events such as Teen Spring Training Trip, Girls Weekend, Summer Festival and Holiday Festival, to name a few.

Barry was diagnosed in 2012 with stage 3 lung cancer after experiencing swelling in his neck that had repeatedly showed up and disappeared several times. He went to see his primary care doctor and an oncologist. He was told he had 18 months to live in 2012. Barry went to see Dr. Lathan for a second opinion and wound up staying to be treated at Dana-Farber. Barry's treatment included chemotherapy, radiation, and a few clinical trials. In February 2014, he began a trageted gene therapy called immunotherapy. This saved Barry's life. He says this "is when my whole life began to change." Barry has been off treatment since February 2016 and healthy. He previously served as a certified risk manager and has two adult daughters. He is very active in church. Sang in church's choir and other volunteer work with church, prayer partner program, currently a lay servant at church, rides his bike, attends conferences with Dr. Lathan and Dr. Freeman. Barry is incredibly grateful to the entire team at Dana-Farber that he credits with saving his life. Barry had the oppotunity to meet Dr. Gordon Freeman, a researcher at Dana-Farber, who's work helped start the field of immunotherapy. Barry was so touched to meet the man whose work led to the creation of the treatment he is currently on.

Dr. Lathan has been a member of the Thoracic Oncology Program at Dana-Farber since 2005 and was appointed as the first Faculty Director of Cancer Care Equity at Dana-Farber in 2010. He directs a successful Dana-Farber clinical service at Whittier Street Health Center in Boston where he developed a lung cancer screening pilot program with the support of a CVS pharmacy foundation grant. He is also a leading researcher in Dana-Farber’s Population Sciences Center on issues of race and class disparities in cancer care and has published and lectured extensively on this topic. In addition to leading Dana-Farber at St. Elizabeth’s, Dr. Lathan works at Whittier Street Health Center and sees patients in his thoracic oncology practice at Dana-Farber’s Longwood campus. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute provides the latest hematology and medical oncology care to patients at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center. The partnership between Dana-Farber and St. Elizabeth’s enables patients to receive the benefit of Dana-Farber’s advances in care and research at their local hospital. Dana-Farber teams at St. Elizabeth’s and in Boston collaborate to review cases and develop the optimal treatment plan for patients.

Chris Silver was diagnosed with melanoma in July 2016 when a couple of irregular skin bumps brought him into his doctor’s office. He underwent surgery to remove the bumps. When Chris woke up, his doctor informed him that he had melanoma and he had already made an appointment for him to see Dr. Beth Buchbinder, a melanoma specialist at Dana-Farber.Chris began treatment at Dana-Farber with a new class of drugs called checkpoint inhibitors or immunotherapy agents – a type of treatment that activate the body’s immune system to attack the cancer. Immunotherapy is helping many cancer patients, but especially those patients with melanoma, to achieve durable remissions that even 5 years ago were not possible. Much of the research that led to the development of these lifesaving drugs were done by scientists at Dana-Farber. In December, Chris' wife Melissa was diagnosed with breast cancer. Fortunately, Melissa’s cancer was caught early and today she is cancer free. Chris is doing well himself aside for some from some fatigue. Chris is back to work and when he’s not on the job or fighting cancer, he enjoys camping, kayaking, and hiking.

Dr. Buchbinder can talk about how Dana-Farber is leading the way in immunotherapy agents, called checkpoint inhibitors, which take the breaks off the body’s immune system so that it can recognize and fight the cancer. Immunotherapy is exactly the type of groundbreaking therapy that Dana-Farber works to advance, and which has produced dramatic remissions in patients that had previously untreatable disease.

Mayor Marty Walsh joins Kirk, Gerry, and Mut on the second day of the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon.

Art Streeter was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a cancer that often originates in the throat and nasal passages of the head and neck. Art’s cancer was discovered in his tonsils. His treatment of chemotherapy and radiation began in April 2017. Art’s last treatment was in July and he will come back to Dana-Farber in September to ensure that his treatment has been effective. Each day he is feeling better and more like himself. Art credits his nurse practitioner, Jason Glass, with getting him through these last several months. Jason saw Art twice a week throughout his treatment and was there every step of the way to adjust medications and treatment protocols and manage Art’s side effects. Art is a practicing attorney and he and his wife live in Franklin. They have three children ages 21, 25 and 27. Art’s daughter, a senior at Northeastern, accompanied Art to all of his treatments.

Jason is a nurse practitioner specializing in Head and Neck Cancers at Dana-Farber. Nursing is a third career for Jason. His father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and the nurses caring for his Dad inspired him. His dad died, but he believed the nurses improved his Dad’s last 18 months of his life and he wanted to help others going through a similar struggle. He’s been a nurse for 11 years and has always worked in oncology.