-: In a word, it's very fulfilling.
It was important for me to have a job
that I felt fulfilled and challenged
and that stretched me a bit.
So, I'm very grateful for it, I don't take it for granted.
I realize that there were a series of circumstances
that led to my career being where it is today
and I reflect back on it all the time
and I don't take it for granted.
You know, there's a lot of progress being made in cancer.
It's easy for people to say that,
"Geez, we're never going to have a cure.
"There are just not big advances,
"big breakthroughs aren't happening."
But there's baby steps happening every day
and I get to see that through the work
that our members are doing.
They're passionate about what they do
and what they're doing is caring for people with cancer
and for the people in their families
who are also affected by the disease
and their research is making strides every day.
We're just not seeing it in big breakthroughs
but things like immunotherapy, which was the cancer advance
of the year last year, it's huge now
and people are starting to recognize it and realize
that this is almost the wave of the future
in cancer treatment and it's treating a lot of diseases
and helping people live longer and better quality of life.
So, you know, people always want more.
We want more patient advocates to attend our meetings
and to learn and to get access
and wouldn't it be great if they could all come
and not have obstacles in their way?
Like expenses is usually what it boils down to.
They can't afford to get there.
So, money (laughs), more money for research
for funding for all the breakthroughs
that we need in cancer.
That's not personally what challenges me
or it's not a hurdle for me personally in my job,
but I guess the challenges are always wanting to do more
but not being able to because of restrictions like money
and funding, that sort of thing.