Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
London Marathon
Here are a couple of pictures from the London trip. A big thanks to my Dad, Mom, Aunt Lynda, cousin Neil, brother Eric and his friend Evan for support during the race. Also, thanks to everyone who helped me enter the race, particularly my college track coach Alex Gibby, Ed Moran, and Mary Wittenburg, Kirsten Rice, and Sam Grotewald of the New York Road Runners. Finally, a huge THANK YOU!!! to those of you who donated to our cause when they guessed my marathon time. Kurt Weaver of Virginia was closest. For his prize, Kurt chose a print of one of my favorite photos from Gates of the Arctic National Park in Northern Alaska.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Hi everyone, I am off to Wyoming to take a National Outdoor Leadership School Instructor Course (NOLS IC). For more information you can go to http://www.nols.edu/. I will be trained as an outdoor educator, in order to teach people how to survive and enjoy the wilderness and to develop their leadership skills and knowledge of the natural world. On my way, I plan to stop and see my mom's parents in Oregon....a bit of a surprise!
A new WPRF Newsletter will be coming soon!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Starting it off
1. What are 3 brain cancer research areas that you would like to see our funds support?
Potentially promising research avenues that could use additional funding include: 1) drugs used as adjuncts to chemotherapy (e.g. accutane or thalidomide in addition to temozolimide), which may increase the susceptibility of glioma cells; 2) anti-angiogenesis therapy, which constricts a growing tumor's blood supply; and, especially, 3) immunotherapy techniques which attempt to harness the body's own immune system to kill tumor cells by stimulating the creation of tumoricidal 'T'-cells and antibodies. (see attached by Ehtesham et al.)
2. What personnel regime do you follow that you wouldn’t mind sharing with our readers?
(Disclaimer: the information presented here is the opinion of Will Tarantino and is for informational purposes only, do not consider it medical advice. Discuss the ideas presented here with your own doctors.) I highly recommend that anyone interested in supplementing their prescribed treatment do extensive research themselves, and not simply follow anyone's personal regime blindly. Places to start include Ben Williams' book, "Surviving 'Terminal' Cancer", and his free online guide to glioma treatments (Treatment Options for Malignant Glioma), which he updates about every two years (it has now been 14 years since he was diagnosed with a GBM). There are a few other pre-digested online sources like the Annie Appleseed Project that have good information, but be wary of the disguised advertisements about "guaranteed" or promised cures if you use a particular technique or medicine, especially if they are trying to charge you. The cliche "If it sounds too good to be true, it is." holds especially true here.
Before you ever actually add anything to your regime you may want to go straight to the primary literature to confirm the efficacy of the herb/vitamin/drug/etc. This can be as easy as going to scholar.google.com and searching for glioma/astrocytoma/glioblastoma and the treatment in question. If you want to go further into the literature, you could go to Pub Med, the NIH's database of the medical literature located at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/.
It may sound cheesy, but I think that everyone needs some way to push themselves and their capability as a human being. Something that exercises the will and demands discipline, whether its running or rock climbing, music or poetry. Running and backpacking have been my chosen outlets in this vein for some time. However, because backpacking is a 24 hour time commitment, running takes the lead when I'm living in the "real world". I've focused on marathons for the past few years because I felt that was where I could improve the most. The London Marathon is one of the premiere running events in the world, and it will probably allow me to push myself further than any other race. It is also one of the fastest courses in the world, providing the opportunity to drop my personnel record by a large margin.
4. What is your “next” race or adventure?
I will spend most of May in Wyoming taking a NOLS instructor course. In June/July/August I could potentially be rafting on the Colorado, climbing/hiking in the Sierra, working for NOLS, or training for a race in September. I will decide which race to run if/when I begin training. Late September/Early October I will begin 1.5 months on the Colorado Plateau (southern Utah and northern Arizona) with my friend Sharon. After completing that trip I will hopefully be returning to Mammoth to work for Ski Patrol and begin training for another race.
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