Cancer Patient Gets Boost From Friend

There’s no big prize at the end of Sunday’s Catalina Classic 2000, an arm-punishing 32-mile paddleboard race from Catalina Island to Manhattan Beach.

And Keith Munemitsu doesn’t expect to win--he just wants to finish.

He’s doing it for a friend.

Munemitsu, 33, of Newport Beach, is a one-man fund-raising campaign for the Sarcoma Alliance, founded by his friend of nearly 20 years, Suzanne Leider. Leider has synovial sarcoma, a very rare cancer. Her just-formed alliance is aimed at giving others with the disease information and coping skills for what can be a lonely journey.

Through his “Oceans of Hope” campaign, Munemitsu hopes to raise awareness of sarcomas, malignant tumors of the connective tissues, while raising $50,000 for the alliance. Last year, he raced for the first time in Leider’s honor and helped raise funds for Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.

“What I learned from last year is that being an athlete, whether it’s amateur or the Olympics, means finding your limits and summoning the courage to push beyond them.

“The life of a cancer survivor revolves around pushing to find another day of life. In those terms, it’s easy to be an athlete,” said Munemitsu, who learned how to paddleboard after reading a magazine article about Mike Rogers. Rogers founded “Paddle for the Cure” to support cancer research as a tribute to his father-in-law, a cancer victim.

A longtime surfer, Munemitsu was able to train full-time last year and placed 15th with a time of 5 hours, 44 minutes. This year, work has cut into his training time and he expects to take seven hours to propel his 18-foot longboard to the finish using arm power alone.

But for Munemitsu, it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about participating--doing something for a cause and helping a friend.

Leider, who has kept in touch with Munemitsu since the two met at Newport Harbor High, was jogging when she first felt the tenderness in her right thigh that would be diagnosed as sarcoma.

At 25, she had just started her first nursing job. Now 33, Leider has had several surgeries for cancer that metastasized to her lungs. She’s undergone chemotherapy four times and had numerous courses of radiation.

Now living in Mill Valley, Leider attends graduate school at UC San Francisco School of Nursing. Recovering from recent major surgery, she spends most of her time working on the Sarcoma Alliance.

“It’s my passion,” said Leider, who has had 325 hits on her Web site since it went up this June and gets about seven e-mails and several telephone calls a week, mostly from people in the U.S. but also from places as far flung as Romania, Italy and Australia.

Known for her upbeat attitude, Leider wants to get the message out to others with sarcoma that they are not alone, despite their relatively small numbers. About 10,000 people, or half of 1% of all cancer patients, are diagnosed each year with sarcoma, she said.

One of her biggest challenges was finding another young adult with any kind of cancer, let alone the kind she had. Then she met Wendy Sommers while waiting for a radiation oncology appointment. Sommers knew someone else and the trio formed a mini support group. Sommers, a 15-year cancer survivor, died last year. Leider promised to take over her work with the Sarcoma Foundation.

And the Sarcoma Alliance was born.

Although she’s coped with pain, disfigurement and loss of hair, the emotional struggle is the most difficult, she said.

“Always knowing you could have a recurrence any day is hard to live with,” she said.

She hopes the alliance will educate sarcoma patients, help them choose treatments, cope with side effects and connect them with others like them. Her best piece of advice to others is to “live your life even through adversity and pain. Don’t put things on hold. Spend time with people you love.”

And when Munemitsu reaches the Manhattan Beach Pier on Sunday, Leider plans to be there to meet her friend.

Sarcoma Alliance, 775 E. Blithedale, No. 334, Mill Valley, 94941. (415)381-7236. https://www.sarcomaalliance.com.

To be considered for this column, please send information on the Orange County person being honored along with a photograph to Lynn O’Dell, The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. (714) 283-5685.