In 2002, Tony McEachern competed in the Raid Gauloises in Vietnam, a grueling 621-mile endurance race. One year later, in the midst of seemingly peak physical health, he was diagnosed with a Grade III Anaplastic Astrocytoma and was given two years to live. But Tony took that diagnosis and battled through it just as he did that extreme race. He fought through the pain and the desire to give up and endured. It’s been many years since his diagnosis and Tony is still here to share his story of fighting cancer.

The battle was not won easily. Tony endured five neurosurgeries, two years of radiation, four years of chemotherapy, and several experimental treatments. He sacrificed hair and peripheral vision to chemotherapy and radiation but never gave up.

Although he credits much of his survival to The Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke, Tony believes there were many people outside of the medical field who contributed to his recovery. He had the constant love and support of family and friends, and also other cancer survivors he met along the way. Still, he had never met anyone his age who was a cancer survivor.  He wanted to talk with someone just like him, someone who truly understood and was intimately familiar with his experience.  In short, he was looking for someone who had already beaten the same type of cancer.  Tony also knew he could positively impact others within his community who had been diagnosed.

The relationships with others going through cancer are what led Tony to have the vision for Team Tony Cancer Foundation. He felt compelled to use his experiences with cancer to raise awareness about the critical need for programs that support those diagnosed with cancer. He believed more needed to be done to help cancer fighters stay engaged in active and goal-oriented living and have the support they needed to thrive, not just survive cancer.  His vision of creating a cancer support organization became a reality in 2010 when Tony, along with his friend and fellow cancer survivor, Lori Kayser, officially launched Team Tony Cancer Foundation. With that, one of Tony’s personal goals was accomplished and a much bigger mission was created: to pair a cancer survivor with a support seeker so those diagnosed with cancer get the support they need and make sure no one on Florida’s Suncoast faces cancer alone.