MEDFIELD, Mass. — After losing Adam Opiela to metastatic colon cancer at age 30, his family has partnered with a Dana-Farber research lab to raise awareness, support research, and keep his memory alive.
Opiela’s family remembers him as the kind of person people naturally gravitated toward — funny, curious, deeply loyal and full of life.
“I think about my oldest son, light of my life,” said Joe Opiela, Adam’s father. “A presence that had charisma, had a great sense of humor, a light that lit up a room every time he entered it.”
Adam loved sports and history, and he wanted to help young people. He was student teaching while earning his master’s degree at the University of Texas when, in April 2021, doctors discovered he had advanced colon cancer.
Joe said his son had little warning before the diagnosis. After Adam fainted twice in his apartment and went to the emergency room, doctors performed a colonoscopy and found a fist-sized tumor. The cancer had already spread to his kidney and liver and was deemed inoperable.
“Very crushing for the family,” Joe said. “It was a four-month saga of tests and interventions to no avail. He passed in four short months.”
A friendship carried forward
Michael Hayes, one of Adam’s longtime friends, said the two grew close in middle school and continued their friendship through high school and college. Hayes remembers Adam first for his laugh.
“Great friend, fiercely loyal, non-judgmental, hilarious,” Hayes said. “When I think of Adam, the first thing I do think about is his laugh.”
Hayes said Adam’s friends initially struggled to understand how serious the diagnosis was. Seeing him in the hospital made the reality impossible to avoid.
“We just couldn’t believe that it was that advanced and that he’d only have a few more months,” Hayes said.
A connection with Dana-Farber research
In Adam’s final weeks, he and his family met Dr. Nilay Sethi, an assistant professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, who runs a lab focused on gastrointestinal cancer research. That connection became the foundation for a partnership that continues today.
The Sethi Lab’s participation in the Jimmy Fund Walk for Dana-Farber grew out of a desire to connect scientific research with the patients, families and communities it is meant to serve.
“It is what Adam represents,” Dr. Sethi said. “It’s this rising rate in early-onset cancer that we try to think deeply about and try to, in a pointed way, come up with a solution for.”
“We don’t want to just be doing research in a silo,” Dr. Sethi said. “We want our work to impact society.”
Walking in Adam’s memory
Just weeks after Adam’s funeral, the Sethi Lab and the Opiela family formed a Walk Day Team in Adam’s memory. They have walked together every year since.
Dr. Sethi said the experience helps his lab members see the human impact of their work. It also gives them a chance to explain complex research in a way families and neighbors can understand.
“It really touches them,” Dr. Sethi said of the lab members who participate. “It motivates them to really try to find a solution. We couldn’t do it for Adam, but we want to do it for the next patient that suffers from colon cancer.”
Hayes said the walk has become both a way to raise awareness and a yearly moment for Adam’s friends and family to come together.
“It’s just nice every single year to have a designated date on the calendar to gather as his friends and as his family, to just remember Adam,” Hayes said.
A promise to raise awareness
Joe said the walk is part of a promise he made to Adam: to keep his name alive and to help others understand that serious illness, including colon cancer, can affect people in their twenties and thirties.
“We partner with Dr. Sethi with the hope that we create more awareness for early testing,” Joe said. “It can happen to you in your twenties.” He said the family also hopes the money raised through the walk can support cancer treatment research and, ultimately, progress toward better outcomes for future patients.
“Adam’s life did not pass in vain,” Joe said. “We can make some good out of it by raising money for cancer treatment and potentially a cure. Because nobody should have to go through what we went through.”
To help the team walking in Adam Opiela’s memory and support the Sethi Lab’s research at Dana-Farber, donate here.
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