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Shining light on an epidemic Township to host Overdose Awareness Day in Mercer County on Aug. 27 By anne sWeeney The official speeches are finished, the devastating statistics revealed, the heartbreaking stories of lost loved ones told. Now the participants in International Overdose Awareness Day in Mercer County gather in a circle for a candlelight vigil in memory of the 700,000 Americans who have lost their lives to drug overdose from 1999 to 2017. Some of their survivors speak in broken voices of teenagers
dead from a heroin overdose; parents lost to suicide because they could not overcome addiction to opioids; partners brokenhearted to find their loved ones becoming addicted to prescription pain medication legitimately prescribed to them by doctors, and then moving on to heroin when their drugs were no longer available. Tears fall on flickering candles. The group finishes this testimonial to a national tragedy by singing “Amazing Grace.” So ends International Overdose Awareness Day, a global event now in its fourth year in Mercer County. Scheduled on Aug. 27 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Woolsey Park in Hopewell Township, this year’s event will include speakers from the Mer-
cer County Prosecutor’s Office, The Prevention Coalition of Mercer County and community members who have lost friends and family to opioid addiction. International Overdose Awareness Day seeks to educate the community about this ravaging epidemic of drug overdose that took over 70,200 American lives in 2017 alone. A full 47,600 of these overdoses involved opioids. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that misuse of, and addiction to, opioids costs the United States $78.5 billion annually. That figure is measured in terms of the cost of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, law enforcement, criminal justice See OVERDOSE, Page 12
Leukemia Cup: a race against cancer Lisa Thorndike has raised nearly half a million dollars for cancer research and treatment while fighting multiple myeloma By Julia Marnin
Corn, cabbage, fennel, elderberries and more on sale at the Chickadee Creek Farm stand at the Princeton Farmers Market on July 25, 2019. Chickadee Creek, owned and operated by farmer Jess Niederer, is in Hopewell. (Staff photo by Joe Emanski.)
Lisa Thorndike found support groups she never knew she was looking for through the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Leukemia Cup Regatta. The England native and Hopewell resident has lived with multiple myeloma for almost three decades. For 27 years, she has been attending and raising money for the annual regatta, a fundraising sailing event held at yacht clubs all over the nation. She says these events have connected her with lifelong friends while she battles mul-
tiple myeloma, a rare and incurable blood cancer that forms in white blood cells known as plasma cells. And she has personally raised nearly half a million dollars for the regatta, money that organizers say goes toward life-saving research and treatment. Thorndike, 78, has had 36 bone marrow transplants, and expects to have more due to her condition, in which cancer cells overpower healthy cells in the bone marrow. This year, she has raised around $22,000 even while undergoing chemotherapy and infusions of Darzalex, a
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monoclonal antibody meant to slow multiple myeloma’s progression. Despite receiving her weekly infusion for four hours through an IV and experiencing the nausea that accompanies it, Thorndike says she always looks for the positives. She hopes to reach $24,000 by the time she attends the Leukemia Cup Regatta Aug. 9–11 at the Ocean City Yacht Club. There she will look forward to renewing old acquaintances. “You see all your friends but unfortunately, some of them do not come back,” she says. Each regatta features a number of sailing competitions for which participants form crews and compete against one another. See REGATTA, Page 14
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