Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Will this ever end?

I'm going to be a bit guarded about this story because I'm not sure it's (yet) my story to tell.  Last week Friday, a good friend found out his 8 year old daughter has leukemia.  Over the weekend and testing on Monday, they found out that she has B cell-ALL which is the most common and treatable leukemia, thank the heavens.  She's had technically two chemo treatments already and may be able to have outpatient chemo going forward, which, while still stressful and still chemo, will provide some comfort of being at home.  I'm praying for her (according to my definition of prayer). ;)

So, here I am again asking for awareness.  Awareness that childhood cancer is diagnosed 46 times every weekday.  And, SEVEN children die of this disease.  If that's not enough for you to consider donating to finding a cure, of those 12000+ kids who are in treatment every year, 98% (NINETY EIGHT PERCENT) will have secondary cancers or other chronic diseases.  Read that again.  Ninety Eight Percent.  Also, I've read statistics about too-high percentages of childhood cancer survivors who live only about 20 years beyond diagnosis.  So, think about that.  Diagnosis at 3 or 5 years of age.  Considered "cured" at age 8 or age 13.  BUT, because of secondary cancers or other complications/diseases, their LIFE EXPECTANCIES is about 20 years.  So...they die at 23.  Or, 25.  REALLY???  And, THIS is progress in curing this/these diseases?

Please consider donating to organizations that support finding cures for CHILDHOOD CANCER.

Here are some links:


http://www.stbaldricks.org/

http://www.curesearch.org/

http://maccfund.org/

Please donate, please cure our kids.

It's important to note that while there are other very good and important cancer fund raising organizations, they DO NOT support childhood cancer cure research.  The links I provided above focus on these diseases specifically.





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