Saugus walk raises $10G to fight cancer

SAUGUS – Saugus resident David Webster died less than six months after he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. He was 47, and there was little doctors could do to stop it from killing him.The dearth of treatment for the bile duct cancer that killed Webster confounded his family and doctors during his emotionally and physically painful last few months, said Dr. Sarah Nikiforow, who treated him at Massachusetts General Hospital.View a photo gallery.”Anything we did was to prolong life and improve quality of life, but he was looking at an extremely limited lifespan, which for someone who’s 47, is devastating,” she said.On Saturday, Nikiforow joined more than 400 Saugus-area residents in a walk honoring Webster’s memory while raising $10,000 for a national nonprofit, TargetCancer, that supports research for rare cancers.The Dave Webster/TargetCancer: Community for a Cure fundraiser also united a community universally affected by the disease, said event organizer Bob Davis, who along with his wife, Carolyn, and Saugus’ World Series Park and the First Congregational Church organized the event after Webster died in December.”I don’t think there’s a person alive whose life hasn’t been touched by cancer in some way,” Davis said.Many of Saturday’s participants pinned signs of people they had lost to cancer before walking a mile from First Congregational Church to the World Series Park, where speeches, music, entertainment and food awaited them.Participant Deb Pappas wore a sign that said “For my mom,” but she was also walking for her father-in-law, George Pappas, and her husband, Harry Pappas, who both suffered from a cancer in the spine.She said it’s unsettling to see cancer pervade her family and community.”It’s frightening to me that there’s so much of it,” she said. “But I’m hopeful after seeing this outpouring.”George Pappas, who owned a coffee shop called “Coffee Break” on Central Street in Lynn for years, died in 2003 from the cancer. But his son, Harry, is in remission after battling a relapse of his cancer that spread to his legs.Harry Pappas said Saturday’s overwhelming support to find a cure for rare cancers is exactly where people should be directing their energies.”It’s all going to happen in the lab,” he said. “There’s where they’re going to find the cure.”Nikiforow agreed. She said she and another oncologist who treated Webster were only able to rely on tests from pancreatic cancer to treat him, which didn’t correlate well enough.”I think that was another intellectual frustration that added to the turmoil of them going through this,” she said of the Webster family.David Webster’s wife, herself a two-time survivor of breast cancer, said cancer research is the difference between life and death for many. That’s why she agreed to put her husband’s name front and center during Saturday’s fundraiser.”Because of treatment, I’m here today,” she said, wiping away tears Saturday as she reminisced with her husband’s family about her high school sweetheart.David Webster’s mother, Dorothy Webster, said she’s humbled by the community’s support for her son and to finding a cure for the disease that killed him.”He was wonderful,” she said. “Naturally his mother’s going to say it, but look around. I think a lot of people feel that way.”Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].