Mayor Walsh Reflects on his Childhood Cancer before Audience of Cancer Survivors
June 06, 2014
(News release)
Delivers keynote
address at annual Living Proof: Celebrating Survivorship event at Dana-Farber
BOSTON – Boston Mayor Martin Walsh reflected
on his successful fight against childhood lymphoma before an audience of 200
cancer survivors and their family members and clinicians at last night’s annual
celebration of survivorship at Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute.
The mayor was diagnosed at age 7 with Burkitt’s
lymphoma, a rare, aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that primarily
affects children. For the next four years, he received inpatient care at Boston Children’s Hospital and
outpatient care at Dana-Farber.
“Every time I drive by, I think of those days,” Mayor Walsh
said. “Watching the technology and science grow and how far since 1974 that
technology and science has come is incredible. To the survivors out there, you
have courage, too. To the younger people, you don’t quite understand what it
means yet, but as you get older you’re going to realize the fight you have, the
strength that you have. To the folks that are a little older, you know the
fight. For those of you that are being treated right now, I know the fight
you’re going through.”
The mayor spoke at Dana-Farber’s tenth annual Living
Proof: Celebrating Survivorship event, an evening of fellowship sponsored
by the Perini
Family Survivors’ Center. The
center provides care and conducts patient-oriented research for adults in
Dana-Farber's Adult Survivorship Program and for children in the David B. Perini, Jr. Quality of Life Clinic and the Stop & Shop Family
Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Outcomes Clinic. The Perini Center also disseminates information on the medical,
emotional and psychological challenges facing today's growing population of
cancer survivors.
“You are all living
proof that there has been progress in cancer research and cancer care,” Edward J. Benz Jr.,
MD, president and CEO of Dana-Farber, told the audience in introducing
the mayor. “In the United States, there are over 13 million people who have survived
cancer. Within the next few years there will be 15 million. When I started
practicing medicine in the 1960s, it was almost unheard of to survive cancer….
Mayor Walsh himself was a pioneer, one of the first to receive what we now know
are effective treatments for this disorder.”
In the four decades since Mayor Walsh was diagnosed with lymphoma,
research has fueled changes in treatment that led to dramatically improved
survival rates for childhood cancer. According
to National Cancer Institute data, the proportion of cancer patients under age
20 who survive five years or longer has risen from 59 percent in 1975 to 85
percent. In 1975, only 40 percent of children with non-Hodgkin lymphoma
survived five years or more; now 84 percent survive.
“On January 6, I got sworn in at Boston College,” Mayor
Walsh said. “I thought about the path that got me to that stage…. I also
realized I would not be on that stage if it were not for the Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute. There’s no question in my mind. I am proud to be a cancer survivor.
I am honored that kids going through cancer can look to my story for hope.”