Sunday, October 03, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

STEVE SEBELIUS: Keeping hope alive

If you caught a glimpse of the Tour of Hope, which was slated to ride through Las Vegas on Friday evening, you've seen a big part of Heather Murren's dream.

As cancer survivor Lance Armstrong and other bike riders make their way from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., they're raising awareness of the disease and giving those with it a reason to hope.

For Murren, a former financial adviser who has been working to build the Nevada Cancer Institute since 2002, hope is planned down to the color of carpets and style of furniture. After losing her grandparents to cancer, her new vocation is creating a Las Vegas institute dedicated to treating and researching the disease. "The mission is curing cancer," she says.

In addition to her personal losses, Murren knows all about cancer from the statistical side. About 25 percent of Nevadans who are diagnosed with cancer leave the state for treatment, including Gov. Kenny Guinn, former Gov. Bob Miller and former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones.

Nevadans are diagnosed with cancer at the same rate as residents of other states, but the mortality rate here ranks much higher, 10th in the nation. There will be more than 10,000 new cancer cases this year in the state, and 4,000 people will die from the disease. And you need 800,000 people in a community to start a cancer center, which is a treatment and research facility with special certification from the National Cancer Institute.

Las Vegas had 800,000 residents long before January of this year, when ground was broken at Town Center Drive and the Las Vegas Beltway. The $52 million project is slated to open its doors next fall.

And it's a good bet that it will be unlike any other cancer center in the country. This is Las Vegas, after all, so visitors will be greeted by a valet and step into a breathtaking two-story foyer, where a host will escort them to their appointments. Visitors will be treated more like casino high rollers than patients battling one of the most dreaded diseases in human history. And since appearances count in Las Vegas, the center will have an "appearance center" to help ease the nasty side effects of some cancer treatments.

There's more to the center than that, of course. It has a medical director, deputy director and research directors to bring academic knowledge to bear on the disease. There's a high-powered board of directors including Diamond Resorts' Stephen Cloobeck, Nevada first lady Dema Guinn, MGM Executive Vice President Gary Jacobs and fast-food franchise owner Luther Mack. Private fund-raising has taken in $37 million in the past two years. And a cancer center employee is drafting a state anti-cancer plan. The center has received early recognition from politicians on both sides of the aisle, who worked together to get the nonprofit center $3.5 million in funding.

Every November, in fact, the center has a grand fund-raising event, whether an Eagles concert or the screening of the James Bond film "Die Another Day," inside an ice palace patterned after one in the movie.

Murren admits she got a good deal of skepticism when she first started the project. "This kind of thing doesn't happen in Nevada," she says she was told. But her personal experience and the distance to the nearest cancer centers -- Los Angeles at 270 miles, San Diego at 340 miles and Salt Lake City at 420 miles -- kept her working.

That work is under construction right now on Town Center, and with it comes treatment, potential cures and hope.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.