I would like to thank all of you for your well wishes. This was all kind of a surprise to me. Most of the time I do not think of organizations like this, as the day to day interactions with patients, researchers, students and more keep me pretty focused on the tasks at hand, and while I interact with RO's all the time, I wouldn't have guessed that as a group they would have even noticed OCF, let alone me individually.

Of course the great benefit of this is that it becomes another vehicle to get the oral cancer story out in the media, which it appears that ASTRO has done, and on the morning of the award next week, they have arranged several radio interviews (one live, two recording for future release) about patient issues (which I will turn into oral cancer issues).

For all the kind comments posted here, I want you all to remember, especially since most of you mentioned the forum, three things. ALL OF YOU make this forum the rich, helpful, nurturing environment that it is, not me. Without you it is just a piece of software. What OCF has accomplished is primarily because of my desire to build strategic relationships with others that can help us move our disease into the light, find answers for questions, and much more. Were it not for the strengths of those partners like Gillison in research as just one example, no one would notice, since there would be no shoulders for me to stand on. I and the foundation are only as strong as those who partner with and support us. And last, that I am common beyond words, too common for this kind of recognition. The redeeming trait I do posses, is tenacity, which for the most part means that it never occurs to me that something can not be done given enough effort, and less than I choose to tilt at windmills.