Last Chance to Donate! Get us to $20K!!

hey friends! As you might know I’ve been nominated to be the Man of the Year for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Silicon Valley / Monterey Bay chapter for 2011.  Tomorrow night be the grand finale where the winner will be announced and need your support to get me there.  So far my campaign team has raised $15,000 and surpassed our original goal of $10K but now we are surging towards $20,000!  The winner will be determined by the most amount of funds raised within a 10 week period which started in mid-March. As you know the funds are crucial towards researchers finding a cure and patient services such as peer support groups, financial aid, and educational seminars. You can help in one or all of the below ways

1. Donate online at http://svmb.mwoy.llsevent.org/10kin10weeks and check if your company matches!  Deadline is by Saturday May 21st (tomorrow!) at noon! I’ll be at kickoff tomorrow morning at the Santa Marriott starting at 10am pacific so if you want to give me a check in-person.
2. Share the following videos on Facebook, Twitter, or via email: 
• Video interview with Kat Mingus about son’s diagnosis, treatment, and how the Society helps patients and their families - http://vimeo.com/22431007
• Video interview with Marissa Shaffer (12 yr. old survivor), her mom, and dad about why you should donate to the Society - http://vimeo.com/22498638
• Video about myself, 10 years volunteering for the Society, and why it is so important to donate - http://vimeo.com/21247389
  
3. Share the donation link of http://svmb.mwoy.llsevent.org/10kin10weeks on Facebook, Twitter, or via email

Incentives to donate today:

• Cause you know exactly where the funds go and how important it is to find a cure
• For everyone that donates we’ll be having a raffle for the following items:
• a free box of chocolate macadamia nuts from the islands of Kauai
• $200 donation to your non-profit of choice
• If we hit $20,000 and I’ll be throwing a big pool party at Casa Ksar in June with BBQ, drinks, and music.

New Video: How I got Started Helping @llsusa

A lot of people wonder how I got involved in helping out the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (@llsusa on Twitter and lls.org) and running all the 11 marathons and countless other events in honor of my friends and family with cancer.  Watch this video below created by Justin Adkinson (my bro-in-law and Hodgkin’s survivor) from Heavensent  Films.

-Randy

Dr. Brian Druker Finding a Better Way to Treat Cancer – Gleevec

In our 3 part series of drug treatments that were funded by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society we talk about the wonder drug Gleevec.  Gleevec is one of the amazing wonders of the world for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia patients. It is a one pill a day that targets and kills the bad white cancerous cells.  Imagine a world of no chemo or radiation where all  you have to do is take a pill – today is the day.   Dr. Brian Druker and his team from the Oregon Health and Science University spent 25 yrs to discover and now it is a reality for patients.  The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and other non-profits dedicated to finding a cure to cancer funded his research to help patients. Watch the video below from the Stand Up 2 Cancer campaign and donate securely online to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.   If you have any questions call me at 408-409-9033 or email me at rksar@yahoo.com

Saratoga News – Ksar Running to be Man of the Year

I sat down with Brian from the Saratoga News last week talking about our $10K in 10 weeks campaign and our new goal of $20K.  Here is the snippet of the article and my glamour shot.  Thanks to those that saw the article and stopped by this website. Deadline is May 21st so make sure to get in your donation asap.

Rituxan: A Targeted Therapy for Lymphoma Patients

I wanted to talk about a few drugs that were created by funds from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the donations that we are asking for. This will be a three-day series starting on May 3rd. Today’s post is on the drug Rituxan. Read below on how this drug is used for patients and the history of it. This information was pulled from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s website at lls.org.

Rituxan^®, a monoclonal antibody drug, was FDA approved for follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) patients in 1997. In fact, it was the very first targeted drug approved in the U.S. LLS-funded researchers found that Rituxan^® can dramatically improve chemotherapy effectiveness, and the FDA approved Rituxan^® to be used in combination with other chemotherapy drugs for people with follicular lymphoma and other non-Hodgkin lymphoma types. It’s contributed to a doubling of the survival rate for NHL patients, and is now also FDA approved as a treatment for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or Hodgkin lymphoma.

To help fund researchers finding the cure for cancer and patients live a normal life donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

$10K in Less than 7 weeks!

Amazing accomplishment just happened on Friday – we hit our $10K goal in 7 weeks!! Thank you to the over 50 people that have donated! So what does this mean now that we’ve hit our goal:

• We need to redesign and re-name our team – doh! Seriously I didn’t think we would hit that goal.  Comment below on a new team name or if you wanna send us a design idea for the new logo email rksar at yahoo dot com
• You can keep on spreading the word and getting donations! The cure to cancer has not been found and only when that does is when we stop fundraising! Tell  your friends, family and co-workers to donate at http://svmb.mwoy.llsevent.org/10kin10weeks

-Randy

@djksar on Twitter 

Interview with 12 yr. old Marissa Shaffer, Leukemia Survivor

I sat down with Marissa Shaffer and her parents to talk about being nominated for Girl of the Year 2011 for the Silicon Valley / Monterey Bay Chapter, her diagnosis, her treatment, and why people should donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Watch the video below and let me know how you can help spread awareness and raise funds to find a cure for cancer and help kids like Marissa live a normal life.

Talk to you soon,

Randy Ksar
Twitter: @djksar

New Poll: Do you know someone living with leukemia, lymphoma, or myeloma?

-Randy
@djksar

Where the @llsusa Research Dollars Are Going

I was browsing the Leukemia & Lymphoma’s Society’s website earlier today and found these interesting data points about where the funds in 2010 were distributed in terms of researching of specific blood-related cancers. Take a look and comment below if you think it is what you expected and should it have gone  somewhere else.

From lls.org:

In fiscal year 2010, LLS invested $72 million in blood cancer research.

• Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), $16 million
• Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), $13 million
• Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), $10 million
• Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), $10 million
• Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and myeloproliferative diseases (MPD), $8 million
• Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), $6 million
• Myeloma, $5 million
• Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), $4 million

 

Doug Booth, Stage 4 Lymphocytic Lymphoma – Cancer Survivor

My friend and cancer suvivor Doug Booth wrote me an email today talking about the cause, his diagnosis, and current health. Read below and know that the donations that you give to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society help people like Doug.

Email from Doug Booth …..

I heard an organization’s mission statement in January of 2003.   It had no meaning to me if I’d heard it in November of 2002, but by the end of December of 2002, I didn’t realize that soon those words were nearly all that I would focus on.    “The mission of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. “ Corporate America had taught me that mission statements were what some folks for some reason strived for.   Modern Medicine would soon teach me that a blood cancer diagnosis of Stage 4 Lymphocytic Lymphoma was something that needed special attention by special people, with a lot of hope.

Almost four years later, after eight different chemo drugs, and experiences with many individual cancer journeys, dedication of special people and mountains of hope, I had met people (mainly endurance athletes) that wanted to make a difference in society.  I had met a couple of people (soon to be special friends) that were dedicated to making a difference in my world – like me, for their reasons, focused on “curing blood cancers and improving the quality of life of patients”.  In that time, I had met and experienced the intensity of Randy Ksar’s involvement  with LLS and its mission (his mission) statement.   From the beginning of our friendship, he showed me the unusual dedication that drove specially dedicated people.  From the beginning of our friendship, he showed me how to “keep going”, how to “stay focused”, how to “be dedicated”.

This year, in June of 2011, I will celebrate five years of being in remission and free of cancer.   I don’t know the specifics of the medicine and other things that have gotten me to this point but I do know the people that are that are very special to me.   My children, my grandchildren, and a special friend that gives of himself totally, is focused on a future without blood cancers, and deserving of the title of LLS’s Man of the Year – Randy Ksar.