When Mr. Orre first mentioned 20 time to me, I sighed with despair. I was practically done with large projects. When I read the guidelines, I just thought it was gonna be a boring assignment that would take up 20% of class time. However, I soon realized that I am gonna do this whether I like it or not, so I might as do something worth my time. That is when I teamed up with Joelle and we started thinking. Our first idea was surrounding phobias and dreams. However, we got the feeling that the idea would turn into a research project. That is when Jayne came to Joelle and asked to be her partner. At the time Alex was also looking for a partner, which is when we decided to switch. That is when I birthed the idea of a cancer awareness project. This was not going to be an average cancer awareness project, but one that is less common but more lethal, the EGFR NSCLC. 

As I have said in my previous blog posts, my grandfather was diagnosed with the epidermal growth factor receptor mutation of the non-small cell lung cancer about 12 years ago. He defeated the cancer, or so he thought. About a year ago, it resurfaced, but it grew more advanced. We used two types of chemo drugs, but this mutation grew resistant to both medications. The mutation, Alex and I found out, is a new discovery in the field of lung cancer, but it is one of the most deadly. The mutation is becoming more common, and it is occurring without a cure or survival rate. This is the reason we wanted to spread awareness. The best word to describe cancer is "bastard". Our goal is to change that.

Alex and I had a very rough outline on what our plan was. The first part of the plan was getting in contact with Dr. Heather Wakelee, the head of oncology at Stanford. This was the toughest part of the whole process as she is probably the busiest person I know. She oversees every single patient in the oncology department. It was easy to contact her through email, but we wanted to get a conference call with her to ask her suggestions for where exactly the money should go and how. Once we got in contact with her and held the conference call, it was rather smooth sailing. She recommended that we donate the money to Max Dienh, the head of a research team exploring the resistance of the mutation through blood work. We took this advice and started our campaign on gofundme. After creating the basic fundraiser, we began sharing it witch everyone we knew. We went on every social media form we knew including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. We even reached out to celebrities hoping we could gain popularity or start a trend. Our end goal was about $5000, but we knew this would not be reached and expected about $1000. In the first week, we raised about $500, which was a great start, but then nothing happened. To this day we have only raised $500, and achieved only about 25 shares.

Although the fundraiser was not what we had hoped, it was a great experience because I learned more about time-management and work ethic. Time management was a weakness because it took us about a month to schedule a conference call with Dr. Wakelee, and that scared us as the deadline crept up on us.

We finished what wanted to and met the deadline, but this will hopefully become a long-term project and maybe even a club at school. I am very interested now about the topic of fighting the mutation and I am also very enthralled in the subject. I have not stopped the fundraiser, but I will do so once we reach our goal. The greatest thing I learned about myself is that I underestimate my abilities. When I first thought of the idea, I thought this would be too much for me to handle and recruited Alex, but as we worked on the project, I realized I could have easily done this by myself and I would have felt more accomplished at the end. I think I can make this small project into a large movement or club.