The Life Raft Group wishes to thank all of our members who participated in this year’s Holiday Campaign. Though it is still underway (look for final results in the next newsletter), this important campaign has raised over $47,000 to support our patient education & support, advocacy, and research to find a cure GIST.
The Life Raft Group is hosting an online shopping event in collaboration with our dedicated volunteer photographer Kim Tallau and Touchstone Crystals Jewelry (a member of the Swarovski Group). You can shop their online store from now until December 20 with 15 percent of all sales going towards helping the LRG achieve its goal of curing GIST and to helping those living with it until then.
On November 3, 2011, the twelfth Edi film prize for the best advertising, industrial and corporate films was awarded in the Schiffbauhalle in Zurich. Our film, “Life with GIST” won a Silver Edi in the “Corporate: Internal Communication & Training” section.
Silvio Manzanares was a tireless fighter, a man with great courage and optimism, with a brilliant mind, the one who never said no when a doctor ordered a treatment or procedure, always an entrepreneur since he got sick in 2001.
On May 7, we held the NJ Chapter Meeting of GISTers at the LRG Office in Wayne, NJ. It was a great gathering of patients, caregivers, LRG staff members and our guest speaker ,Dr. Bob Maki of Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York.
"Acceptance – for me that means trying to live as positively and naturally as possible by thinking of cancer as a friend and not as an enemy!"
As of May 1, 2011, the LRG patient registry only received 377 reports of mutations out of 1,327 patients, which only represents 28 percent of the entire registry. Part of this may be related to the fact that mutational testing is not common practice at diagnosis.
Where does GIST come from? Good question. GIST actually begins formation in special cells called interstitial cells of Cajal (ICCs). ICCs are considered the pace-makers of the GI tract...
Norman Scherzer (Executive Director) performing to the theme song of Golden Girls to say thanks for helping The Life Raft Group.
Here is a video from the Life Raft Group called GIST 2010: A Decade of Difference! See how far we have come in just ten years in the treatment and research of [...]
