by Tracy Ostroff

Thanks, he says, to drugs he received through clinical trials, leukemia survivor Michael Siegel, AIA, had the endurance twice to send his cancer into remission. This fall, he is again testing his stamina by cycling 3,500 miles cross-country to promote the importance and expansion of clinical trials and cancer research, goals near and dear to his and his family’s heart. The VOA Associates senior vice president is among the 20 riders selected from nearly 1,200 applicants to make the journey from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., with six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope.

The tour kicks off in Los Angeles October 1 and will be joined by Armstrong at points along the way before arriving in the nation’s capital on October 9. The team will relay ride in four- to five-hour segments per day; the public will have the opportunity to show riders their support along the route. The team is in 16 weeks of Web-based training with Armstrong’s personal coach.

Supporting clinical trials
Siegel’s positive experiences with clinical trials motivate his efforts. When he was first diagnosed, Siegel was married with three children; his wife was pregnant with twins. Doctors prescribed a bone marrow transplant that had a 50-50 chance of survival, a “terrifying” prospect he says. Instead, he decided to search for alternatives, entering a clinical trial at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston where doctors were having success with the chemotherapy drug Interferon. His leukemia went into remission. “The side effects were horrendous, but it kept me alive,” Siegel says.

But after about four and a half years the drug stopped working, and the cancer returned at “full bore.” Siegel says his doctor placed him as the first patient in a Phase II trial for Gleevec, a new drug that, to Siegel’s delight, had no side effects. Three months later, his leukemia was again in remission, and four years later he is still cancer free. Siegel is still in the clinical trial and continues to take the study drug, which has since been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“I owe my life to cancer research,” Siegel says. “My personal experience has convinced me that research creates new drugs and treatments that save lives and improve the quality of life.” His enthusiasm and treatment success has prompted two of his family members diagnosed with cancer to seek out clinical trials. For many patients, Siegel says, clinical trials are a “safe treatment option that might be the way to go. Every cancer drug we have today went from the research lab to the clinic to be used for patients through this process of clinical trials. If we don’t increase participation in clinical trials, we won’t bring these new drugs to the world.” The drugs, he says, go from a research lab to the patient through a thorough process. “You’re not a science experiment or guinea pig.”

“If you have to deal with cancer yourself or a friend or a family member does, knowledge is power. Get in there and ask your caregiver questions, and questions, and questions, and understand your options. Ask if there’s a clinical trial that’s appropriate for what you’re fighting,” Siegel advises.

From fear to excitement
Siegel says he is grateful that he’s had the support of his employers from both Booth Hansen Architects when he was first diagnosed and now from his colleagues at VOA. He says he’s maintained his workload while spending a little more time going to the doctor. He’s also thankful for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO health insurance that has covered his treatments through the two clinical trials.

Before his cancer treatments took a toll on his body Siegel was a triathlete, competing in Iron Man races. Once running became too difficult on his body, he turned his efforts toward his biking. “It got me out in the morning. It was kind of an act of defiance. I’d ride the lakefront in Chicago every day to work. It let me convince myself that I wasn’t going to go today.”

Siegel says he’s keeping a journal to chronicle this interesting journey and to record his emotions about the ups and downs of training. “When you apply to the Tour of Hope program you have an understanding of how you might fit in, how you might align with the project’s goals, and you have some idea that you might be able to do this physically—you’re an athlete, you’ve ridden enough, and you can get through this” Siegel says. But it still took him some time come to grips with “why I belong with this incredible group of people,” which includes “doctors who have helped create the drug that keeps you alive to people who have been through two or three stem cell transplants and recurrences before going on a clinical trial and become healthy again, to husbands who have lost their wives, to a father who’s little child was dealing with leukemia, to a mother who lost her son who has the strength to stand there and say ‘my son chose me to carry this message forward.’”

A most important journey
As he has prepared for the tour, first riding 10–12 hours per week, and now 14–16 hours divided among early morning and long weekend rides with his dedicated family, his emotions have turned from fear to excitement. “When you make the first cut from 1,200 applicants to 50 it’s overwhelming.” When Siegel got the final call he says he was “floating around for days.”

“My family has lived through the ‘we have to help dad survive cancer thing.’ They know how important this journey is and this message is and they’re tremendously supportive of it. It’s in a way something that I definitely owe to the cancer community to go out and support this fight now, and my family does as well. So my wife does a lot of training rides, and my older boys do a lot of training rides with us. And the little ones are always delighted to get an extra hour of cartoon watching in the morning, so they don’t seem to be bothered very much either.”

He urges people to get involved in their own way. “Go to the Web site, and make that cancer promise,” which expands the commitment from 20 riders to a much larger group of cyclists across the country. “It’s a very exciting thing. It’s a lot of work, not an easy thing. Physically it’s challenging, mentally it’s been challenging, but every bit of it is worth it. It’s an important cause.”

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