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Peter�s big run Starting today, a Gold Hill man is running across the heartland to raise interest in a rare disease By Bill Kettler Peter Fish starts running across Missouri today because he loves his daughter. He plans to run tomorrow, too, and the next day, and the next � all the way from Kansas City to Washington, D.C. The Gold Hill man turns 65 today, on the first leg of a 65-day, 1,300-mile journey designed to stimulate interest in a rare cancer that afflicts his daughter. "I think it�s a great way to enter my golden years," he quipped last week during final preparations for "RUSS 2001: Run the U.S. for Sarcoma 2001." If everything unfolds according to plan, he�ll jog into Washington, D.C., on June 11. Peter�s daughter, Katie, has a disease with a tongue-twisting name: leiomyosarcoma, a tumor of the smooth muscle of the stomach. It�s a sarcoma, one of a family of cancers that arise in body fat, muscle, blood vessels, bones and nerves. All kinds of sarcomas combined account for about half of one percent of all cancer diagnoses in the United States, or about 7,000 cases per year. About 10 percent of sarcomas � maybe 600 or 700 cases � will be a stomach tumor like Katie Fish�s. "An oncologist can go his entire career without seeing one," Peter said. Doctors found Katie�s sarcoma in September 1999 and immediately removed part of her stomach, one lobe of her liver and her gall bladder. She spent three months in front of her computer, looking at every Internet site that offered any scrap of information about her disease. "You try to get answers," she said, "and you find there aren�t any." Katie, 41, shows no visible sign of disease right now, but physicians don�t know whether the cancer metastasized prior to surgery. A California native and the mother of three young adults, she moved to Gold Hill to be with her dad and stepmother, who have owned Gold Hill�s nine-hole golf course since the late 1970s. She has a CAT scan every three months so doctors can see whether the disease has returned. "I start to panic about two weeks before the CAT scans," she said, "and it stays until I get the results. All I do is go up and down." Like other "orphan diseases" that affect few people, sarcoma draws relatively little research money because it claims far fewer victims than highly visible diseases such as cancer of the breast or prostate. Soon after Katie was diagnosed, Peter realized one of his hobbies might help him draw attention to sarcoma. "I felt like I needed to do something, anything, that might help to kill this �dragon,� as it is often called," he said. "I had heard of Terry Fox, the Canadian teenager who lost a leg to cancer about 20 years ago and ran most of the way across Canada to raise money for research." With 12,000 miles of recreational running in his logbook, Peter first envisioned a transcontinental run. His plans changed when he couldn�t arrange a support team to follow him across the empty places in the Western states. Looking at a map, he noticed the countryside from Missouri east was dotted with small towns every 20 or 30 miles. He realized he could run a course "from K.C. to D.C." on his own, carrying a few necessities in a fanny pack and finding food and lodging along the way. He�ll carry about 10 pounds of gear in a waist pack not much bigger than a large purse. There�s space for a change of clothes, water bottles, socks, snacks, maps, toothbrush and a cell phone. His wife, Jan, and Katie will mail him new shoes and socks and anything else he needs along the way. Peter spent months planning a route that will average about 20 miles a day across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland. He�ll jog on old highways and historic trails and cross Civil War battlefields before he rolls past the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. He received support from running-shoe companies, sock manufacturers and energy-drink suppliers. Hostelries in many of the towns where he intends to sleep have offered him free lodging or a reduced rate. "People have been really willing to help out," he said. He hopes newspapers and television stations will pick up his story as he passes through and people will respond with contributions. "I don�t have people putting cans in supermarkets or anything like that," he said. "With something like sarcoma, you have to make as much noise as you can, and hope that somewhere along the way you�ll run into somebody with clout who�s had an experience with it." All donations will be sent to the Association of Cancer Online Resources, a nonprofit clearinghouse for computer-based cancer information sites, and divided among ACOR and three prominent cancer research centers: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hospital in New York City, Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston, and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. As for financial goals, "I have no idea how much money it�s capable of raising," Peter said. "One of my goals is just to get the word (sarcoma) out there so people know it." A few days before he flew to Kansas City to start his adventure, Peter felt optimistic and ready to run after more than a year of planning. "I think if I�m kind of cautious I�ve got a pretty good chance not only of making it but also sticking to my schedule," he said. "I think if I get into Washington, D.C., on the 11th of June you�ll hear my cry of victory all the way back here." Katie will track her dad�s big run from a little fifth-wheel trailer in a mobile home park beside the Gold Hill golf course. "It�s something that�s extremely important for him," she said. "My father doesn�t know how to tell me how much he cares for me. He can�t tell me he�s scared to death and more worried than I am, and completely helpless to do anything for me. This is his way of letting me and everybody else know how much he cares." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.