Chad Cieslik, on a breast cancer walk in Calgary. He walked with a pair of shoes belonging to a friend and breast cancer victim.
When the throngs of walkers set off this Saturday in Ottawa for the annual Weekend to End Women's Cancers, one familiar face will be conspicuously absent: Chad Cieslik.
Since 2003, inspired by his own mother-in-law's battle with breast cancer, the 61-year-old resident of Stoney Creek, Ont., has participated in 35 such events, in the process raising $250,000 to fight the disease.
But this year, Mr. Cieslik won't be making the 60-kilometre trek: In January, 2009, he was diagnosed with stage 2 lung cancer and now has a tumour on his lower spine.
"I want to be there," Mr. Cieslik, a consultant, explained in a recent interview. "If you believe in the cause, you want to continue participating in any way you can. [But]I get tired very easily. I run out of breath. I sometimes have coughing fits. I'm having trouble walking distances. Once in a while, I get a sharp pain in the spine area, where it numbs my leg."
The funds raised by the annual event - six Canadian cities are participating this year - aren't incidental. Last year, the Shoppers Drug Mart-sponsored walk raised more than $27-million (versus $12-million in 2003) - money that has facilitated ground-breaking medical research.
"The support that has come from the weekend was quite simply … essential to the work we've been doing," said Samuel Aparicio, head of the BC Cancer Agency's department of breast and molecular oncology. In 2009, Dr. Aparicio led a team that decoded the genome of a patient's metastatic breast cancer. Their results, published in the journal Nature, brought one step closer the possibility of using patients' genetic information to treat them.
"If the walk had not existed and was not supporting our program," he said, "that work would not have happened, full stop."
Paul Alofs, president and chief executive officer of Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, said the money raised in his city has been used toward clinical enhancements, programs to help cancer survivors and to fund the work of researchers, including Tak Mak, who discovered the T-cell receptor, the key to the immune system.
For Mr. Cieslik, the diagnosis of his own cancer has provided a new perspective on the walk and its importance.
"I've always had respect for what we were doing, and I believed in what I'm doing," he said. "I am now grateful that there are other people stepping into my shoes, so to speak, and continuing on with what we have all started."
In the past, he says, his mantra was always, "I'm doing it for them, I'm doing it for them, I'm doing it for them." But last year, when he crossed the finish line in Ottawa, a young woman handed him one of the pink T-shirts given to walkers and said, "Welcome to our club."
"It really hit home," he recalled, "and I got emotional, because what you are doing for them they are now doing for you."
The walks, he says, are saving lives. "There are so many answers still to be found, and every dollar that we raise gets you one step closer. That's what it's all about, giving people hope that we are on the right path.… I firmly believe we will beat this in my lifetime. [And]even though for the last few years it's been for women's cancers, what they have done is found links to other cancers. I do believe what we are doing is also going to help me."
Dr. Aparicio, who takes part in the Vancouver walk in memory of his mother, who died of breast cancer, says participating "is a very humbling experience. It's important to remember that people go out, give their time and spend a lot of energy in fundraising, and people give their dollars. It's extremely important to feel that their investment of time and energy is worthwhile."
As for Mr. Cieslik, he intends to be back on the starting line in 2011.
"Next year, at this time of year, we're going to be preparing to head to Ottawa," he said. "You bet. You're going to see me in Ottawa. You're going to see me in Calgary. You're going to see me in Edmonton. You're going to see me in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. And if they throw another city in there, I'll be there too."
Caroline Alphonso