Cancer Fighters Raise Over $145,000 for Relay for Life

Before the race began, Mission Viejo Relay for Life brought in over $145,000 this year in donations, event chair Margot Ferron said Saturday. That's likely to break the city's record in cancer research donations, she said.

That matters to Michael McGuire of Mission Viejo, who in Dec. 2011 was diagnosed with slow-growth cancer at the base of his tongue.

He risked a disfiguring surgery following the diagnosis.

"It would've broken my jaw, split my lip and wrecked my face," he said, adding that he would no longer be able to talk.

The traditional surgery was so damaging, McGuire said he feared it would lead him to commit suicide.

But thanks to a robotic surgery unavailable seven years before his diagnosis, McGuire is now cancer-free and free from the deforming effects of surgery.

That's why raising money for cancer research means so much to him, he said.

It means a lot to Mission Viejo Mayor Rhonda Reardon too. Reardon's sister had an operation for uterine cancer earlier this year.

She describes how she took the news: "Your first reaction is denial—you need a little time to process what's happening."

The good news is that her sister's surgery, which once would have kept a patient hospitalized for two to three weeks, was a success.

"She was up walking around the next day," Reardon said.

Mission Viejo Relay is primed to beat the city record $175,000 raised in 2009, Ferron said. The regional chapter has until late August to raise money for this year's event.