LiveStrong Global Cancer Summit

Another day of information overload in a good way. The LAF is going to make the stats and hopefully some of the presentations available online, but if I remember correctly, the cost of cancer care is over $300 billion per year worldwide. This number can be reduced if we only invested more in what we already know about cancer and in many cases have the knowledge to save lives if we just applied what we know.

We moved into smaller group discussions with various topics such as, grassroots fundraising, survivorship, tobacco control, and several more, that slip my overloaded mind currently. Again it was very interesting and enlightening to discuss a topic and how we deal with it, and then hear how or why that won't work in another country, due to completely different circumstances and environment. The day again passed by quickly. It would have been nice to have been able to go to various discussion tables, but there's just too much going on in to little time.

Dinner tonight was at the Guinness Storehouse. Lots of history around Guinness, such as, yes the Guinness Book of World Records began with a couple of guys at a bar, drinking Guinness no doubt, arguing about which of two birds could fly faster. That led to the idea that millions of similar arguments must be taking place around the world, hence the book. Also interesting to read the early advertisements that have doctors recommending Guinness because it is good for you. Angie got to pour her own Guinness, which there is quite a trick to and they take pride in doing correctly.

Paul Sherwin was the MC for the night - current Versus announcer and was the PR guy for Motorola when Lance was riding and diagnosed back in '96. Scott MacEachern of Nike was the speaker and recounted when Lance was first diagnosed, as well as his personal loss of his mother from cancer and another story of a young boy that lost his leg and ulimately his battle with cancer. Wonderful job. It goes back to the stories that people share which create the biggest impact on others.

The other emotional part of the night and even more personal to us, was for LAF staffer and our personal good friend Chris Brewer. Most folks know him as CB or Fresh Brew. Chris, who had the identical diagnosis as Lance just weeks apart, lost his brother, Robin to cancer three years ago last week. We met Robin at the Ride for the Roses in Austin, so it was very special for us to help Chris complete a dream for Robin. He always wanted to visit the Guinness Storehouse and drink a pint here in Dublin. Since he never was able to make it, Chris spread that there would be a toast to Robin after the program. We ended up with about 30 folks, all with Guinness in hand as Chris made the toast and we all saluted Robin!

This For Now! To Robin!

Once again, we stayed until they ran us off and we took the last bus back to the hotel before the final day of the Summit.