How It All Started
The Pajama Run® was created in memory of Toni Boyle, beloved wife, mother of five, grandmother of ten, and friend to countless many, who lost a very brief battle with colon cancer at the age of 61. She had much love and enthusiasm for her family, friends and life.
However, in March of 2008, after experiencing extreme fatigue, weakness and abdominal pain, she consulted a physician. Through a battery of tests, Toni learned that she had colon cancer that had metastasized to her appendix, liver, stomach, and bones. She was inoperable.
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An emergency appendectomy revealed a tumor, but offered no hope for recovery. In late April, merely seven weeks after her diagnosis, Toni passed away, leaving a family and friends saddened and perplexed as to how this could have happened so quickly.
The surgeons who worked with Toni during her last days estimated that she had been living with colon cancer for quite possibly a decade or more. Had Toni gone to a doctor for her recommended screenings, she would have greatly improved her chance of survival. Like many others, Toni was either unaware of or too embarrassed to schedule her simple life-saving cancer screening.
The memory of Toni Boyle lives on through the creation of The Pajama Run which envisions a day when cancer’s silent killers, such as colon, prostate, ovarian, and pancreatic will be preventable and someday curable.
Preventing these cancers through proper screenings is essential. Often these screenings carry social stigmas; stigmas that can carry a death sentence. Increasing awareness about these necessary screenings is one of The Pajama Run's main objectives. Simultaneously, The Pajama Run aspires to promote major advances in scientific research and medical treatments to help lead to a cure for cancers below the waist.