Story
To donate, please click the pink "Give Now" button.
(If you are outside the US, there may be issues processing your donation through JustGiving. If you have an issue, please CLICK HERE to donate.)
To join TEAM FIERCE SISTERS FIGHT CANCER at the LA Marathon, please CLICK HERE . You can register to run/walk the 13.1-mile Half-Marathon Charity Challenge. Half Marathon registration is $135. When prompted for the Charity, please choose "UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation."
Our Fierce Sisters journey started the day Elisabeth received a Stage IVb Ovarian Cancer diagnosis. From symptom to advanced high-grade serous carcinoma, it was a 22 terrifying days. Soon after, both Elisabeth and her sister Susan were identified as BRCA1 mutation carriers. Susan underwent preventive surgeries only to discover that she, too had the beginnings of this disease. It is hard to express the despair and powerlessness one feels to learn that there is no "cure" for ovarian cancer. Only 17% of advanced-stage patients are still alive by year five, and of those patients who do survive, there is a 90-95% recurrence rate. Also, BRCA1 carriers have a very high lifetime risk for breast and ovarian cancer, and there is no early detection test.
Their despair turned to hope when they met Dr. Gottfried E. Konecny, an internationally recognized leader in ovarian cancer research, a physician-scientist, and a professor of medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Given his extensive research, Dr. Konecny put Elisabeth on a life-saving clinical trial of PARP-Inhibitors, a new targeted drug treatment known to not only extend the life of advanced ovarian cancer patients. It also holds the promise of treating ovarian cancer for the first time as a chronic disease rather than as a death sentence!
Our goal is to support Dr. Konecny's vital research at the UCLA Translational Oncology Lab in developing a method for early detection and to support his research into PARP-Inhibitors and other novel targeted treatment therapies.
Our inaugural campaign was for the LA Half Marathon on November 7, 2021, and we exceeded our modest goal and raised over $110,000 thanks to an amazing community of friends and family. So the work continues! Let us walk together to raise funds for the lives of all our sisters, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, aunts, and girlfriends! Please DONATE to "FIERCE SISTERS FIGHT CANCER" for the LA Half Marathon on March 19, 2023!
Much Love and deepest gratitude from Elisabeth and Susan for all your support!
Please FOLLOW & SHARE our progress:
TWITTER @2FierceSisters
FACEBOOK @FierceSistersFightCancer
INSTAGRAM @FierceSistersFightCancer