Supporters Like You

Ken and Annie met at West Virginia University in the 1960s and began their married life in Manhattan, Kansas. Ken enjoyed a long and distinguished career in broadcast journalism with the Department of the Army, while Annie became a school teacher and community leader.

In January 1997, Ken was diagnosed with invasive, life threatening bladder cancer by his urologist in Kansas. Surgery was recommended, but Ken’s urologist suggested he visit MD Anderson for more evaluation and treatment.

“Our initial visit to MD Anderson began to allay the tremendous stress that accompanies such an unwelcome diagnosis. From the time of admittance, through surgery and follow-up care, all was handled in a calm and professional manner. The staff was cheerful, upbeat and emotionally supportive. I always felt that I received the best care in a state-of-the-art institution,” says Ken.

Ken finished the chemo and therapeutic protocol standard for bladder cancer treatment and is pleased to report that it worked. He has been cancer-free ever since.

Now, the Mrozinskis are active in many historical, dramatic and civic organizations in their new community. They have also made a commitment to helping others survive cancer through their financial support of MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“We decided to leave a legacy gift because MD Anderson is the premier cancer hospital and research center in the country. Their mission must be supported to keep research ongoing so important new strategies can be implemented,” Ken states.

Ken and Annie hope that sharing their story and contributions will help others realize that cancer can eventually be eradicated and quality of life can be restored.

“MD Anderson is a center for hope and helping individuals reaching for a cure. It is a lifeline. We cannot break the momentum.”

Twenty-six years ago, Bill was diagnosed with sinus cancer that required extensive surgery and radiation therapy. Five years after that, he had bladder cancer, which later recurred. Then, in 2011, ear, nose and throat specialists discovered that Bill had squamous cell sinus cancer again.

That’s when the grandfather of four turned to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. At the recommendation of our head and neck doctors, Bill returned to Atlanta to have the tumor removed by his local ENT surgeon.

Then, in early spring 2013, he was again diagnosed with squamous cell cancer. Because of the location of the tumor, surgery was out of the question. The doctors at MD Anderson developed a treatment plan — 13 weeks of chemotherapy along with seven weeks of proton beam radiation. The tumor was completely eradicated.

Six months later, Bill was again diagnosed with another squamous cell cancer. A surgical team at MD&nbspAnderson successfully removed the cancer. This time it required extensive reconstruction of his mouth and cheek.

Bill and his wife, Charlotte, have been donating to the MD Anderson Annual Fund for years. They are so pleased with his care that they recently created a Charitable Gift Annuity to help show their gratitude.

The idea for the Charitable Gift Annuity started when Charlotte and Bill had a “strange windfall.” “We had stock from insurance that we had put in a drawer and forgotten about,” Bill says. “One day, Charlotte happened upon the stock channel on TV and saw what it was worth, so we decided to sell it and give back to MD Anderson. We wanted to do something to help totally eradicate cancer.”

Bill and Charlotte also appreciate that a Charitable Gift Annuity provides benefits, including an income stream and tax savings.

Now Bill has his quality of life back. Not only can he play golf again, but he also doesn’t have to eat green olives to taste every meal. He returns to MD Anderson every three to six months for checkups, and he knows he’s in good hands.

Despite his 25 years as a faculty member at MD Anderson and the graduate school, McCrea says, “I’m still learning.”

When it came time to consider estate planning, he says, “I wanted our assets after my wife, Candace, and I die to go to charities, including the graduate school, and to family members. We just weren’t sure how to make it happen.”

He turned to the free estate planning advice offered to MD Anderson faculty, then contacted the Development Office to make his future gift a reality.

McCrea feels a natural bond develops between the graduate school faculty members and their students, who give so much talent and heart to the research success of individual labs as well as to MD Anderson as a whole.

“Students often bring the best ideas and help determine the direction of research,” he says. “They bring valued perspectives that can lead to breakthroughs we may not have imagined. I want to help sustain that.”

McCrea’s gift will help support both graduate education and research to better understand normal biology, cancer and other diseases – which he considers vital to MD Anderson’s mission to end cancer.

“We all have friends who have died or suffered from cancer,” he says. “When you have a community of students and trainees working to address the challenges of cancer through rigorous, leading-edge research, it can make a real difference.”

Two years ago, acting on a hunch, Jerry asked his doctor to order a colonoscopy, though a previous sigmoidoscopy, a minimally invasive examination of the large intestine, had found nothing wrong. Despite questions as to the need for further screening, the test was scheduled at a facility in Corpus Christi. The diagnosis: colon cancer. Facing surgery, Jerry knew his next decision would be one of the most important in his life. He insisted on heading straight for MD Anderson, where, he says, “cancer is what they do.”

“I wanted to go to MD Anderson because of its reputation as a world-class cancer center,” says Jerry. “The doctors there perform more surgeries to treat specific cancers in one week than others do in a year. I wanted to go where cancer is the specialty.”

Today Jerry is cancer-free. He says if he ever wins the Texas Lottery, “I’ll give it all to MD Anderson.”

In the meantime, the couple has structured their planned giving to include three charitable gift annuities to MD Anderson, plus an additional gift through their estate.

The Abbotts continue to travel, occasionally parking their RV in Houston for Jerry’s six-month checkups. They covered 11 states last summer, and the next big trip on their calendar is a month-long visit to Australia.

With renewed interests in holistic medicine, nutrition and prevention, they’re proud that one day their planned giving will support meaningful research, such as that conducted by Lorenzo Cohen, Ph. D., director of the institution’s Integrative Medicine Program, and Frank C. Marini, Ph.D., associate professor of stem cell transplantation research.

“It’s exciting to think that Pat and I can make a difference in their work,” says Jerry.

Her 18-year-old son succumbed to cancer, as well as both her parents, and her first husband (her mother to bladder cancer, her father to lung cancer, and her late husband to colon cancer).

“I draw strength from God and from those around me, my family and my friends,” she says.

Parker recalls the days leading up to her son’s diagnosis of osteosarcoma in 1975.

“Alan was a nationally ranked swimmer and was about to finish high school when he started to complain of a ‘gimpy left knee’,” says Parker.

An orthopedist prescribed surgery, but three months later the knee had failed to heal. “By then, Alan was on crutches,” says Parker. “We finally went for a second opinion, and that doctor’s words are permanently seared into my brain: ‘I’m afraid, ma’am, your son has a fast-growing tumor on his leg and should see a specialist right away.’ “

At 8 a.m. the following Monday, in January of 1975, Alan and his parents were at MD Anderson for an examination. Numerous tests confirmed the diagnosis.

“There followed aggressive chemotherapy, accompanied by loving and empathetic care,” says Parker. “The cancer prevailed, however, and in October of that year Alan died.”

In 2001, Parker’s relationship with MD Anderson became even more personal with her own diagnosis. “I self-admitted to the system and told them to fix me up, and they did,” she says. “I felt I was adequately administered to, cared for, treated and followed up on. If I were a teacher giving MD Anderson a grade, I would give it an A-plus in all categories.”

It was during this period, Parker recalls, that she began to ponder in what specific ways her life had made, or might make, a positive impact on the lives of others and, specifically, what she might do to make such an impact. It was also at about this same time that she began to pay more attention to the many advances in cancer research at MD Anderson.

This growing awareness led her to rewrite her will and set up her IRA to be divided three ways among her alma mater, her church and MD Anderson. In memory of her son, she established the Alan Ryden Endowment for Pediatric Osteosarcoma Research at MD Anderson, with a $35,000 initial contribution, in 2009.

“By these acts, I hope in some small way to help those who might be diagnosed with cancer now, and in the long run to give hope and optimism to cancer patients in the future,” says Parker.

More was introduced to cancer 26 years ago. After years of sunbathing on the beaches of Venezuela (where she moved as a child from her native Spain), she began fretting over a growing mole. “I finally went to a plastic surgeon to have it removed,” she recalls. “He took out part of it and told me it was melanoma. I thought I was going to die.”

She quickly shared the diagnosis with a close friend, a Venezuelan physician who had completed a fellowship in Houston. “He said I needed to go to MD Anderson,” she says. “That was on a Friday, and the next Wednesday I was in Houston.”

At MD Anderson, More was put at ease by Charles McBride, M.D., a surgeon who removed the potentially deadly melanoma. Chemotherapy followed, and she became cancer-free. But she learned that McBride, who always made her “feel like everything was going to be OK,” was not well himself. He later died of pancreatic cancer.

A few years ago, More paid special tribute to McBride through a deferred charitable gift annuity—established in his memory to help advance melanoma research at MD Anderson. “I don’t have much money, but what I have I wanted to give to the people who helped me so much. Dr. McBride and everyone were so incredible and caring every time I came to MD Anderson,” says More, who continued annual follow-ups for 20 years.

During one of those visits, eight years after she battled melanoma, she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and had a lumpectomy. Today she’s 62, glad to be “alive, strong and healthy.”

“I never take that for granted, and it makes me very happy that I could give something that would help other patients. I feel it’s important to give whatever you can, no matter the amount,” says More, who weekly helps feed the hungry in Miami, where she moved years ago to be closer to Houston.

“[The Charitable Gift Annuity] will be great when I retire, and it’s a great way to add to my savings now,” says More, who deferred payments until last year, ensuring a higher annuity rate and a larger gift to MD Anderson. But those who will benefit the most are future patients whose lives may be saved through research enabled by her generosity and foresight.