By Mary L. Grady
Cyclist and cancer survivor, Lance Armstrong knows the road that Islanders Bob and Letty Gustav traveled before Bob’s death from prostate cancer seven years ago.
Seven-time Tour de France winner Armstrong spoke at a survivors breakfast and fundraising event for the Institute for Prostate Cancer Research, a organization that Bob Gustav was instrumental in beginning. The event, held last Wednesday, was attended by 1,100 people including Letty Gustav and other family members, crammed into the Grand Ballroom at the downtown Seattle Sheraton hotel.
Since her husband’s death, Letty Gustav has served on the citizen advisory committee of the institute. The institute, a collaboration of UW Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, focuses on prostate cancer awareness and research. Within the activities of the committee, Letty Gustav along with other family members, have worked to help raise money for research into the disease that is now the second leading cause of death in men in this country.
Letty Gustav involvement with cancer research began a dozen years ago when her husband was diagnosed with the illness. After visiting several doctors, he had been told, in so many words, “go home and get your affairs in order,” she recalled.
It was through a cancer support group that the couple found the treatment Bob Gustav needed. They were told of a new way of treating the cancer as a hormonal disease being developed by Tia Higano, a physician with the University of Washington.
After listening to her, they knew they had found hope.
“She was for us,” Letty Gustav remembered, “she took us on.”
But, Bob Gustav had found out too late where and how to get the proper treatment. He lived much longer than initially expected — seven years, his widow said. But still not long enough.
“You feel like you have been robbed of those final years,” she said of their 30 year marriage. The couple, who had owned land for years on the north end of the Island, built a house on the property ten years ago.
“His not knowing (what to do) was his whole motivation to start the institute,” she said of her husband.
The numbers of prostate disease are sobering. One in six men will be diagnosed with the disease. According to data from cancer researchers, if a man has the cancer, the probability that another male relative will develop it increases two- to five-fold.
At the breakfast, Armstrong announced that his own cancer research foundation would be donating $1 million to the UW-based research and education effort. The huge room was silent as Armstrong spoke of his own experiences — the highs and absolute lows of his own diagnosis and recovery from testicular cancer and the cycling victories that followed.
The institute advisory committee is also made up of well-known Washingtonians such as Jim Whittaker, the famous mountain climber, as well as former Washington state Governor and senator, Dan Evans, former Washington State University president, Sam Smith and Seattle businessman, Joel Diamond.
“Every gentleman on the board has been affected by the disease,” Gustav said.
Even the medical director for the institute and head of urology for the UW, Dr. Paul Lange, who specializes in treatment of prostate cancer, was diagnosed and treated for the illness himself.
