Steve Dunn, 48; Survivor of Kidney Cancer Created a Website to Help Other Patients
Steve Dunn, who fought back kidney cancer more than a decade ago and used his experience to launch a website to help others find appropriate treatments for the cancer, died Aug. 19 of complications from bacterial meningitis. He was 48.
Dunn had been hospitalized with the disease for 10 months and died in a hospice in Denver, said his mother, Nancy Dunn.
In August 1989 at age 32, Dunn, a computer programmer and avid outdoorsman, was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer. Two weeks later, he underwent surgery, but by then the cancer had spread to his lungs and spine, and doctors gave him little hope of survival.
While researching post-operative treatments in a medical library, Dunn stumbled on an article about a physician’s work in a clinical trial using interleukin-2 and interferon, which at the time was considered experimental therapy. Believing that his chances of surviving cancer for five years was otherwise “zero,” Dunn decided that “a mere hint” of something more effective “was worth pursuing with everything I had.” He underwent treatment intermittently from November 1989 through June 1990, his mother said.
Afterward, Dunn, who had earned degrees in math and biology from Middlebury College in Vermont, became interested in helping others with kidney cancer.
“I was (and am) outraged by what I had to go through to get highly promising, lifesaving treatment,” Dunn wrote on www.cancerguide.org, which he created to document his experiences and help others find assistance. “I believed my experience put me in a special position to be able to help other patients.”
Dunn also created www.kidneycancertrials.org, where he said the purpose was “to help you learn how to better research trials and to focus and clarify your own thinking about clinical trials by example.”
Dunn eventually received several grants that enabled him to pursue his work on the websites full time. In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration appointed him a patient advocate for kidney cancer clinical trials.
He was co-administrator with Robin Martinez of an online resource specific to kidney cancer: kidney-onclistserv.acor.org, which is accessible at www.acor.org.
Until last year, Dunn enjoyed remarkable health, he wrote on cancerguide.org. He had resumed hiking and climbing.
In 1996, he completed his goal of reaching 54 peaks in Colorado that are at least 14,000 feet, “something I could not have even dreamed of in 1989.”
He also married, divorced and in 1999 rekindled his relationship with Kristin Swihart, with whom he had a daughter, Shasta Rose, 5.
“He was absolutely normal .... He did everything he had done before, and more,” his mother said.
After his death, many who had been in contact with Dunn through his website posted memorials. One man remembered him as “a knowledgeable, caring, analytical, humorous guy who helped so many” and noted Dunn’s amusing way of signing his e-mails -- Steve “What me worry?” Dunn, Steve “Have A Tumor, Go to Jail” Dunn and so on, including Steve “Have Tumor, Will Travel” Dunn.
Dunn gave this assessment of himself on his website: “I am not a leader type, and I am not charismatic in any way. My place in life is to impart information and advice: not to dictate, or to make decisions for others.”
He added of his work with cancer patients: “No one should ever again have to stumble through the darkness the way I did.”
Besides his daughter and Swihart, of Boulder, Colo., and his mother and father, Robert, of Easton, Conn., Dunn is survived by a sister, Susan Dixon of Hadley, Mass., and a brother, Jeremy Dunn of Seattle.
A memorial will be held in October in Boulder. Contributions in Dunn’s name can be made to the Assn. of Cancer Online Resources, Donor Services, 173 Duane St., New York, N.Y. 10013-3334.
