Bowlers: Score another strike against leukemia
Fifth annual Memorial Bowling Event to fund blood cancer research
BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer

PROVIDED BY THE COHORSKY FAMILY Avenel resident Stephen Cohorksy III has kept his father's memory alive for the past five year through the annual Stephen Cohorsky Jr. Memorial Bowling Benefit for the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

WOODBRIDGE - Avenel resident Stephen Cohorsky III has kept his father's memory alive for the past five years through the annual Stephen Cohorsky Jr. Memorial Bowling Benefit for the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

The benefit marks its fifth year since Stephen J. Cohorsky Jr., who owned and ran the Cohorsky Construction Fitzpatrick Trenching Co., passed away on July 5, 2002, at the age of 53 from a rare form of leukemia. The benefit will be held at 1 p.m. on March 3 at the Woodbridge Bowling Center, 346 Main St.

"It has been over four years since his passing and his loss is still especially hard on all of us who loved and respected him," said Stephen III, who started the benefit with his mother, Brenda, and brother Scott. "His hard work and dedication to living life to the fullest is what drives us today to continue his good memory and to raise as much money as possible to hopefully one day defeat this terrible and tragic disease."

When Stephen Cohorsky Jr., who was known as the practical joker of the family, was diagnosed with the rare form of Leukemia in 1996 at the age of 47, doctors told the family that he only had six months to live.

"There was no treatment for the disease," said Stephen III. "He was on experimental treatment that did help prolong his life."

Stephen III described his father's disease as if the cancer, which later on was identified a T-cell leukemia that also involved the skin, was starting from the outside in.

"He looked really tan," he said. "His skin had red blotches that were itchy and if the skin hit anything it would automatically start to bleed. My father had two treatments of chemotherapy that did not work. Toward the end, the cancer hit his major organs."

The elder Cohorsky participated in a clinical trial that helped develop a new treatment that is currently being used for children with leukemia.

All the money raised at the benefit supports the research of The Cancer Institute of New Jersey [CINJ] Hematologic Malignancies Tumor Study group headed by Roger Strair, M.D., Ph.D., director of hematologic malignancies at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey and professor of medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

"The money raised has already made an important and very positive impact," said Michelle Walker, director of annual giving at CINJ. "It has supported development of a completely new type of transplant procedure. A patient has been successfully treated with this life-saving therapy that would not have been developed without this support. Other patients are waiting for this treatment and newer treatments are being developed."

Hematologic malignancies include lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, multiple myeloma, and myelodysplasia.

The work supported by the Cohorsky money includes basic research to identify new ways to target and kill a hematologic malignancy; translational research (testing a new treatment in a laboratory model of the disease), and clinical research (investigator-initiated, nonindustry-sponsored clinical trials of novel therapies).

Funds are not only raised from what participants pay to bowl and/or donate, but largely from the sale of raffle tickets for door prizes which Stephen III solicited from various companies, sports teams and restaurants over the past eight months.

"Through everyone's cooperation and generosity, we were able to raise over $26,000 last year, which brought our four-year total to over $58,000," said Stephen III. "I am expecting even bigger things from this year's event with 250 to 300-plus people for the event, including several celebrities and dignitaries."

Immediately after bowling, everyone is welcome back to the Avenel Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7164 for food, refreshments and entertainment as well as more raffles and prizes, he said.

For more information contact Stephen Cohorsky III at (732) 636-1859.