They’re Up All Night to Focus Attention on Fighting Cancer

It was billed as a vigil, but it looked more like a massive, open-air slumber party, complete with tents, rock music and late-night Ping-Pong games.

And running, of course. For 18 nonstop hours this weekend, hundreds of people took turns running and walking around the track that encircled their balloon-festooned tents at Orange Coast College. Throughout the night, the thumping sound of sneakers hitting the earth resounded through the makeshift camp.

What brought them here was a common interest in fighting cancer. Some have cancer themselves, while others have lost parents and friends to the disease.

So they joined in the American Cancer Society’s second annual Relay for Life this weekend at four sites in the county, with the goal of raising more than $150,000 for cancer-related programs. Few slept more than a few hours and some stayed up all night, but on Saturday morning they seemed buoyed by the camaraderie of the event.

Among them was David Grissam, 31, of Newport Beach, whose multiple myeloma was diagnosed just six months ago. He now awaits a bone marrow transplant. Grissam spent Friday night at the Orange Coast tent camp and then took his turn walking the track.

“Cancer is a very expensive disease. A lot of people who have it don’t have the money,” said Grissam, who recently retired as a U.S. Marine Corps sergeant stationed at El Toro Marine Air Station and is receiving cancer treatment through the veterans’ hospital system.

Grissam noticed his energy was ebbing months ago, but it was only after suffering chest pains that his cancer was diagnosed. It is a form of cancer with a relatively high fatality rate. But he calls himself lucky because his older brother, Robert, has been approved as a bone marrow donor, and he is now awaiting final clearance for a transplant.

“You can’t give up,” he said Saturday as he waited for his turn to walk, his fiancee, Ann Rzeszut, 29, at his side.

Molli Mullen, 17, of Newport Beach, whose cancer was diagnosed two months ago, spent the night at the tent camp with friends from a church youth group. The girls wore matching T-shirts with FACT--for “Fighting Against Cancer Together”--spelled out in pink letters, and they were boisterously playing volleyball after staying up most of the night.

Many who looped the track were there because a friend or relative has, or had, cancer.

John Salmon, 34, of Corona del Mar helped plan the Relay for Life last year. He was inspired by his mother, who had battled breast cancer for 4 1/2 years.

“It was a way for me to get involved,” said Salmon, whose mother died just days before last year’s relay.

This year, Salmon served as chairman for the event at Orange Coast College, staying up most of the night, although he reports dozing for about half an hour before dawn.

He also did his turn on the track, running about 45 minutes at 3:30 a.m.

The relay in Costa Mesa drew about 30 teams, with members paying a $10-per-person entry fee and raising least $100 from donors before the event. People could also contribute by purchasing luminary candles that lined the track.

An estimated $45,000 to $50,000 was raised at the campus site this weekend, up from $15,000 last year, said Margaret Edwards, the cancer society’s regional marketing communication director. Organizers expected to exceed their goal of raising $150,000 from all four Orange County sites--at Orange Coast College, Cal State Fullerton, Golden West College and Mission Viejo High School.

As the Orange Coast relay wound down at noon Saturday, about 100 stalwarts took one more stroll around the track and then gathered for an awards ceremony.

Alison Noakes, 28, of Costa Mesa circled the track with her son, Hayden, 2 1/2, and daughter, 9 months, in a baby stroller. She wore a T-shirt printed with a photograph of her father, who died of pancreatic cancer in 1993. Several other family members joined her.

“Our whole theory on the entire walk,” Noakes said, “is that if it helps one person, then it’s worth it.”