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Race car to bring attention to cancer
Kernersville woman has rare form of the disease
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Published: August 2, 2009
KERNERSVILLE
When NASCAR driver David Gilliland revs up his engine this weekend at the Pocono Cup Race in Pennsylvania, race fans will see the bright green "Sarcoma -- the forgotten cancer" logo emblazoned on his car.
The logo is a tribute to Kernersville resident Amy Elliott's fight against leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer.
Elliott's condition was diagnosed last Aug. 7, 12 days before her 40th birthday. After several problems related to her gynecological health, her doctor recommended an internal sonogram and then a biopsy of a fibroid tumor.
The highly aggressive tumor grew from a very small spot to the size of a 14-week-old fetus in just four weeks.
"LMS behaves differently than other cancers and doesn't encapsulate into a neat little ball that is readily identified. My tumor came back (initially) as negative for cancer. I was blessed that the oddity of my tumor caught the eye of the chief of the gynecological oncology department at UNC Chapel Hill," Elliott said.
The tumor was removed, and a biopsy revealed that it was malignant. Six rounds of chemotherapy spread over 18 weeks began.
During the treatment, Elliott said, she prayed and told God that if she survived, she would do what she could to spread the word about the rare cancer.
Her current doctor, Dr. Paul Savage, is an oncologist at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center who specializes in sarcomas.
"Sarcomas in general -- all locations, all genders -- make up about 0.81 percent of cancers. So when you are talking about leiomyosarcoma, you are already splitting a split hair," Savage said.
Elliott began to learn about research efforts into LMS, which are few and far between.
"LMS is a tough cancer. There are too many of us for there to be government research into it like many of the very, very rare cancers. There are too few of us for the drug companies to put much research into it,'' said Joni Fixel, a Michigan resident who is president of the National LeioMyoSarcoma Foundation. "Because of the limited treatments, we lose a lot of people."
Fixel said that since the foundation was formed in 2001, it has raised almost $1 million to finance research projects that have been undertaken at the University of Pennsylvania and at Stanford University.
There are no paid positions at the foundation, so all of the money raised goes toward research and awareness, Fixel said.
"There are seasoned oncologists who have never seen this, so we want to raise awareness," she said.
Elliott, a NASCAR fan, turned to the racing world at the suggestion of Kathy Ryan, a co-worker of hers at Millennium Real Estate, whose husband works for Richard Childress.
That eventually led to Elliott traveling to Mooresville last week to meet with Mike Brown, the general manager of TRG Motorsports, as well as other members of David Gilliland's crew. The group decided to put the "Sarcoma -- the forgotten Cancer" logo on the car, along with a green-and-white ribbon signifying leiomyosarcoma.
"It's about a $50,000 to $100,000 space, but it isn't about the dollars and cents," Brown said. "It's about raising awareness so that they can get more funding for research. We had the space available and it felt like the right thing to do."
Fixel said the foundation is "just over the moon to have this opportunity for awareness. For the race team to donate this space that we could never afford, it's just priceless."
Elliott, meanwhile, is in Pennsylvania as a guest of the team. Reached by telephone yesterday morning, she said the logo already is paying dividends.
She said a woman approached her in a coffee shop and told her how much it meant to see the car emblazoned with the LMS logo because her daughter died of the disease. The woman said that her daughter's gynecologist did not recognize what was wrong with her, and by the time an oncologist saw her daughter and operated, the cancer had spread too far. She died after a 3½-year battle.
Elliott, whose LMS is in a state where there is no evidence of the disease, said she was happy to be in Pocono.
"My favorite driver has always been Dale Jr., but today I root for David Gilliland all the way!"
■ Monica Young can be reached at cyoung9@triad.rr.com.
■ For more information about leiomyosarcoma, visit www.leiomyosarcoma.info
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