Living Strong: Lance Armstrong

Six-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong is cheered on by mother Linda Armstrong Kelly

by Anne Hebert

 
It was undoubtedly the hardest race of his life. Fighting for energy and sapped by the long haul, Lance Armstrong saw the finish line ahead and put every ounce of effort into the final push. This was not his sixth Tour de France victory, or even his first. This was his battle against cancer.

Diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer at age 25, Lance soon learned that the disease had spread to his abdomen, lungs, and brain. Although doctors rated his chance of survival at less than 40 percent, Lance took an active role in educating himself about his disease. Armed with a strong support system and a competitive spirit, he underwent aggressive treatment, and beat the cancer.

Adopting the no-holds-barred attitude that had helped him become one of the world’s best cyclists, Lance declares himself not a cancer victim, but a cancer survivor. “Lance has always been a fighter!” says Lance’s mother, Linda Armstrong Kelly. “I always told him, if you give up, you give in. Cancer was the one thing he definitely wasn't going to give in to.”

Linda recalls that even at the hardest points of treatment, Lance enjoyed connecting with other cancer patients; sharing stories, fears, and words of encouragement. “He was still uncertain as to what the cancer experience was all about, yet there was so much enthusiasm when people engaged in conversation with him,” she says.

Dismayed to learn during his treatment that there were approximately ten million Americans living with cancer, Lance wanted to direct his energy and focus public attention on helping cancer survivors. Before his recovery, before he even knew his own fate, he decided to launch a charitable foundation that could help others face cancer with the same proactive approach and positive attitude he had. The Lance Armstrong Foundation was born.

“I wanted the Foundation to manifest all of the issues I had dealt with in the past
few months: coping with fear, the importance of alternate opinions, thorough knowledge
of the disease, the patient’s role in the cure, and above all, the idea that cancer did
not have to be a death sentence,” says Lance in his best-selling book, It’s Not About the Bike. “It could be a route to a second life, an inner life; a better life.”

Founded in 1997 and based in Austin, Texas, the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF), believes that in the battle with cancer, knowledge is power and attitude is everything. It has taken the lead in identifying and supporting issues of survivorship - the unique and ongoing needs of cancer survivors beyond diagnosis and treatment.

Above Left: As part of the annual “Ride for the Roses” fundraising weekend, Lance cycles with children in the 2002 LAF Kids CARE bike ride. Above Right: While Lance was going through chemotherapy, every night he and mother Linda would read letters from people struggling with cancer.

Bottom Left: Linda Armstrong addresses a crowd at the Nike store in New York celebrating the launch of the “Wear Yellow, Live Strong” campaign. Bottom Right: Jean Sellers, center, of High Point, NC joins Lance Armstrong and Bristol-Myers Squibb chairman and CEO Peter R. Dolan, left, on the “Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope”, a cross-country journey to raise awareness of cancer research.

“Thanks to the progress of medicine and science, more people than ever before are surviving cancer,” says LAF president and CEO Mitchell Stoller. “Survivorship begins with a cancer diagnosis and continues for a lifetime. While public and private initiatives have focused for decades on finding causes of and cures for all forms of cancer, they have largely overlooked
the needs of cancer survivors. It is this void – survivorship – that the Lance Armstrong Foundation strives to fill.”

Survivorship issues range from immediate questions about treatment or health concerns to long-term issues such as physical challenges, emotional well-being, financial concerns, and other life changes. Since its inception, the Foundation has raised more than $34 million to fund cancer survivorship programs and research. The LAF “provides the practical information and tools people living with cancer need to live strong” and serves its mission through four core program areas: education, advocacy, public health, and research.

Earlier this year, the LAF unveiled its Live Strong program to educate people living with cancer, their friends and family, and health care professionals about battling cancer. The Live Strong Website (www.LiveStrong.org) is a resource center for cancer survivors, offering compelling survivor stories, information on physical, emotional, and practical topics associated with cancer, and survivorship tools to help cancer patients, family members, and survivors manage important information.

The LAF also represents the voice of people living with cancer to increase awareness, encourage the government to take action, and address the health policy concerns of people battling cancer and their families. Lance takes an active role in advocacy initiatives as a member of the President’s Cancer Panel (PCP), to which President George W. Bush appointed him in May 2002. As a member of the PCP, Lance works hard to raise awareness of cancer survivorship issues. In 2003, he and his fellow PCP members traveled the country and heard from cancer survivors about the issues they had because of their diagnosis.

While such national advocacy initiatives focus on change at the highest level of public policy, the LAF also actively promotes change at the community level. Last year, the LAF worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop recommendations for a National Action Plan on Cancer Survivorship. The plan will be made available to state-based public health organizations as a template by which they can pattern comprehensive cancer control and survivorship programs.

Through its Community Program, the LAF helps organizations develop community-centered survivorship programs, and to date has granted almost $1 million to 63 programs across the country. Past efforts have ranged from providing information to the Chinese American immigrant community in New York, to a retreat encouraging healthful lifestyle choices for young adult cancer survivors in Southern California, to a wellness program using rowing to increase strength among breast cancer survivors in the Boston area.

In 2004, the LAF will expand this program area and coordinate efforts between community initiatives to support quality-of-life programs and services that fulfill recommendations in the National Action Plan on Cancer Survivorship. For the first time, the Foundation will host a conference for Community Program partners to facilitate the exchange of ideas and best practices.