Shining Without the Sun
In August 2002, two families shared a very touching and far-too-common story.
It all began the winter of 2001.

By: Anita Day,Co-founder and Executive Director, Outrun the Sun, Inc.

I pulled out our medical book: the thick blue one that lists every conceivable malady, complete with symptoms and specific recommendations to combat them. On page 478 under skin cancer it listed three kinds: basal cell, squamous cell, and melanoma. The one sentence that left me numb was the sentence that read, “If not detected at an early stage, melanoma can be life threatening.” You see, I had just learned that my friend, a lifelong friend of my husband, was diagnosed with melanoma. Stage III. His name was Gary Patton and he was 38 years old. Gary and his wife, Jenny, were living a good solid life: happily married, successful careers, raising their two-year-old son, Will. This was the winter of 2001.

I worked at the Indiana University School of Medicine at the time and did everything humanly possible to find out about melanoma in hopes of helping Gary. Knowing that he and Jenny were busy doctoring, doing their best to carry on with work, and trying to provide a normal life for Will, I spent whatever time I could researching treatments at IU as well as those at other medical institutions around the country. The information I learned wasn’t encouraging. A cure for melanoma didn’t exist. And available treatments did not offer long-term, effective results. People died rather quickly when diagnosed with advanced stage melanoma. The more I researched, the more I felt discouraged. But it wasn’t until about six months into Gary’s treatment that I received what felt like a knockout punch.

It was mid morning. I was at work and had just tried reaching my parents when my sister called. We had been waiting, rather impatiently, for some test results. A few weeks earlier, my father had found a lump under his arm, which his surgeon had recently removed. I don’t remember most
of what my sister said during our conversation but she told me that tests showed a tumor thought to be either testicular cancer, renal cancer, or melanoma. Apparently markers for all three cancers were identified. “Please, God,” I thought, “whatever you do, please don’t let it be melanoma. Please.”

The following days were difficult. But they weren’t as difficult as the day we learned that Dad was diagnosed with stage III melanoma. With everything I had learned thus far, I thought I could hit the ground running and push further into research mode. But it often felt like I just couldn’t run fast enough. For months, Jenny, my sister and I searched across the country for new clinical trials. We explored new treatments. We traded information. We telephoned physicians across the US. We called pharmaceutical companies nearly begging for drugs that could be used for compassionate use. We shared contact numbers and names. We bought herbs and anything else that we thought could help. In the end, nothing could. There just weren’t existing resources available that could help someone with late-stage, metastatic melanoma.

On August 13, 2002, my father died. My mother, sister, four of my aunts and I were with him. Eleven days later, Gary died. I had visited just hours before, and he, too, was surrounded by people who loved him. My dad, John Busse, was 79 years old. Gary had just turned 40.

More than five years have passed and there still aren’t any drugs, clinical trials, or treatments that have proven to be effective long-term for late stage melanoma. Thousands of people die each year because of it. I saw first hand what two of them had to endure as patients: pain, fear, and no cure. This is why my sister, Jonna MacDougall, and I, along with Jenny and another friend, Marci Reddick, established an organization to educate the public about melanoma and to raise funds for medical research. Our belief is that every person has the capacity to make a difference. The key is in making the decision to try. This is our way of trying. This is the story behind Outrun the Sun, Inc.