TEAM M4M

Mission: To find a cure for melanoma.

Purpose: To raise awareness, community support and raise funds for the Melanoma Research Foundation (MRF) mission, which provides financial support to medical institutions and personnel who are dedicated to finding a cure for melanoma.

Goals: 1.  To expand Miles for Melanoma (M4M) from an individual

fundraising event to a nationwide team endurance training

program.

2.  To provide team members fundraising guidance, education and

endurance training to achieve personal and fundraising goals.

The Story Behind TEAM M4M

2000 was a new beginning for many.  For Kevin Stenstrom and his family, it was a new beginning down a road of anxiety, denial, and evolution.  Kevin, a Naval Flight Officer for 16 years in the U.S. Navy and marathoner, arrived at his yearly flight physical with one request from his wife, have the doctor look at that spot on your shin.  Two weeks later, on Thanksgiving day, the flight surgeon called to inform Kevin that the results were “suspicious” and he needed to see the dermatologist Monday morning.  Three surgeries to remove cancer in multiple sites in the lymph nodes and two recurrences later, Kevin began an aggressive treatment series at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in 2007.

Kevin had begun running marathons in college for fun.  In 2002, he began running marathons for a mission.  The day Kevin went in for his first surgery in 2000, Kevin’s father was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and a non-active form of Leukemia.  Kevin joined the Team-in-Training program for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.  Kevin lost his father in 2005 to Leukemia.

In 2006, Kevin was diagnosed with his first recurrence of Melanoma – six years to the month of the original diagnosis.  The doctors recommended surgery.  After his recurrence, it was decided that the mission of the family had to shift to not only finding a cure for Leukemia, but to start fighting for a cure for Melanoma.  A search began for programs such as Team in Training which supported research and development of cures for Melanoma.  The best match was found with the Melanoma Research Foundation (MRF).

Founded in 1996, the Melanoma Research Foundation was created by Diana Ashby, a melanoma patient, to increase melanoma research, education and advocacy.  Fundraising initiatives, to date, are individually driven fundraising events in honor or memory of a Melanoma patient.  Kevin’s initiative is to create a team concept of fundraising through individual commitments to the overall goal of raising money and awareness while achieving an individual goal of self-awareness, healthy activity, and self-betterment.

In 2007, exactly one year later from the recurrence and seven years from the original diagnosis, cancer was again found in Kevin’s lymph nodes.  The cancer was moving and becoming more aggressive.  While most were welcoming the new year of 2008, Kevin was at NIH starting a regime of Interleukin II in an effort to stop the cancer.  The fight continues.