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Gold Hill man runs for sarcoma research By BILL KETTLER When Peter Fish runs up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial today, he'll finish an adventure that started in April in Kansas City, Mo. The Gold Hill man ran "from K.C. to D.C." to raise money to study a rare cancer that afflicts his daughter, Katie. He ran more than 1,000 miles, talked to dozens of newspaper and television reporters and visited with cancer victims and their families in seven states. "I've never done anything that's met with such universal approval," he said in a telephone interview from Leesburg, Va., earlier this week. "People housed me and fed me and carried my pack." Fish ran about 20 miles a day, talking to anyone who would listen about leiomyosarcoma, a cancer that destroys the smooth muscle of the stomach. It's one of a family of rare cancers collectively known as sarcomas. The tumors 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 all sarcomas - perhaps 600 or 700 cases a year - will be stomach tumors like Katie Fish's. Fish started the run on his 65th birthday. He said his body survived the 20-mile-a-day grind with no damage more serious than a few blisters, but he altered his original plan to run every day halfway across Missouri. "By the time I got to Jefferson City, I decided it would be better to take a day off every week," he said, "and it became a habit. That's what kept me in such good shape." A California native, Fish said he enjoyed seeing the variety of land forms in the Midwest and eastern states. "I just enjoy the act of running. It's a sort of a territorial feeling. When you run to a place, you sort of own it. There's just a pleasure in seeing what's around the next corner." He said boredom rarely bothered him. "Just being able to do this at my age is very satisfying. I did think about all the people I'd seen and what was happening to them." Fish said small-town newspapers along his route often took time to tell his story, but television stations frequently ignored him or told his story with major flaws if they told it at all. "One said I was running to Chicago," he recalled. Fish hoped the run might raise up to $1 million for the Association of Cancer Online Resources (ACOR), a New York-based Internet information clearinghouse for cancer patients. ACOR director Gilles Frydman was on vacation this week and could not say exactly how much money Fish had raised, but said the total was "in the thousands" when he left New York. "That doesn't surprise me," Frydman said, speaking from a vacation camp in the Rocky Mountains. "I know how difficult it is to raise money for ACOR, or just to get people to do anything." Despite the run's financial disappointment, Fish said he's pleased that the project helped to increase public awareness of sarcoma. Along the route, he spoke with a physician who plans to form a national sarcoma foundation to provide a permanent source of research funding. "I had been talking about this (foundation concept) to anyone who would listen," he said. "This is what's needed - an ongoing organization." Katie Fish, who moved to Gold Hill last year from California to be near her dad, said she'll be glad to see her father again when he flies back to Medford Friday. Her sarcoma is in remission, and she is taking a new drug that has shown promise against leiomyosarcoma. "There is nothing more he can do for me," she said. "This is something he's done for a lot of people. He's touched a lot of hearts, probably more than he knows." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Contributions to support sarcoma research may be sent to ACOR (Association of Cancer Online Resources) at: RUSS 2001, Attn. Gilles Frydman, ACOR, 173 Duane St., New York, NY 10013. Checks should be made payable to ACOR, with a memo identifying the check for RUSS 2001. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.