What a privilege and thrill to be on hand last week for the official launch of the Mike Slive Foundation for Prostate Cancer Research. It was exciting to imagine the possibilities — for better detection, for better treatments, for cures — to combat a cancer that strikes one in seven men.
This week, the Survivors Cancer Action Network is even more determined for the new foundation to succeed at its work. This week, we lost an important member of our team to prostate cancer.
David York was a friend and a member of the Survivors CAN board. He had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer at age 44. At the time, reaching his 50th birthday seemed a long shot. When pressed, doctors told him he had a couple of years to live.
But they were wrong. In 2015, he was able to travel to the Georgia Dome to see his beloved Crimson Tide win the SEC championship on the way to another national championship. Then, he helped his dad celebrate his 90th birthday. And, this past May, David celebrated his 51st, and final, birthday.
Even as he went through a range of traditional treatments, he never stopped looking with hope at the new advances that might provide the next line of defense against his cancer.
Sadly, that next line of defense didn’t come fast enough for David. And we know there are many more people like David out there.
Here are some key facts:
Other than skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men. The American Cancer Society estimated that there’d be about 161,000 new cases of prostate cancer in 2017 and 27,000 deaths from the disease.
That is 27,000 too many.
So back to Mike Slive.
The former SEC commissioner continues to contend with prostate cancer that has spread to his spine. He calls the new foundation that bears his name “the beginning of the end of prostate cancer.”
To that, we say amen.
Rest in peace, David.