BBC Pickleball

The Brown Billone Club is excited to join this incredible initiative!

Being an avid Pickleball Player, Coach, and Organizer when i first saw this Fundraiser my first thought was.. it would be so fun to beat up on Gronk and Chung at PKL! Who doesn’t love Gronk, Chung, and PKL?

But “Pickleball for a purpose” quickly took on a new meaning for me..

Almost 10 years ago i lost my beautiful Mother, Susan Gray, to Pancreatic Cancer. Like the millions of families cancer has affected, ours was devastated.

I don’t talk about it much as trying not to think about it is the only way I’ve been able to deal with it but I was lucky enough to have the right friends to help me through being her Health Care Proxy. It was the hardest road I’ve ever had to navigate. I immersed myself in research. After her diagnosis we found ourselves at Dana Farber for the initial consultation. Here we were given all the info and left that day knowing exactly what we were up against.

A dear friend was the manager of Clinical Trials at the Cancer Center of America in Philadelphia. She informed me of a new drug that had just been approved a month before. After a lengthy search we found her Oncologist. She knew she was dying and it was important to her to find an Oncologist that would not only give her this newly approved drug, but simply that she liked. She knew this person would be the last Doctor she would ever have.

Dr. Koomey, her Oncologist, made all the difference. He knew about the drug and was happy to give it shot. We believe this first treatment gave her about an extra year of life. She lived a little over two years after a stage 4 diagnosis. When the day came and he needed to tell us there was nothing more that could be done this man had tears in his eyes. To him my mother wasn’t just a number. She was a human being and he felt my whole families pain. I’m forever in debt to Dr. Koomey.

My Mother Susan fought hard. She didn’t want to die and couldn’t deal with the pain it caused for the people who loved her. I’m not sure anything can make people feel as helpless as Cancer. If not for the research done at many Cancer Hospitals she wouldn’t have gotten that extra year. One less amazing Thanksgiving and Xmas with her family. What is that worth? For me… everything.

One of my amazing team members, Dr. Anya Feinhaus, is also an Oncologist. She has educated me about Dr. Sidney Farber and how he is known as the Father of Modern Chemotherapy. I am so grateful for the people who dedicate their lives to this research.

So now yes i hope i get to play Gronk and Chung at PKL but really Pickleball is unimportant. Raising money for Cancer Research is far more important and every dime helps. Maybe someday someone will not have to write this :(