Thursday, February 15, 2007

Conquer Childhood Cancer

Little Warrior was "lucky." She was diagnosed at an early stage, with a type of childhood cancer that has very good survival rates.

She was also not so lucky ... she was technically at a Stage 5, because she had tumors on both of her kidneys. And then the tumors didn't shrink with the chemo. And because the margins of healthy kidney contained something called nephrogenic rests, which basically means, "um, you may not be done with this."

But mostly she was lucky because of the research that had been done on Wilms' tumors. She benefited. There was an established protocol.

From the below mentioned article:

"The list of studies the group plans to eliminate is not final, but Reaman said the cuts will cover several diseases, such as relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia, relapsed solid tumors, a brain tumor called good risk medulloblastoma and chronic myeloid leukemia."

Right there in the middle ... "relapsed solid tumors" ... that's what's on the chopping block to cut the research funding for.

If Little Warrior suffers a relapse ... things become very, very serious. Due to a lack of funding, there is NO established protocol for relapsed Wilms'. At that point, it becomes trial and error. It becomes, "I heard so-and-so-doctor did this ..."

PLEASE, follow this link to send a message to your congressperson to support funding for childhood cancer research.

http://capwiz.com/curesearch/home/

We need more than just luck.

3 comments:

Nancy said...

Consider my letter sent!

Lilylou said...

Me too.

iamnasra said...

what to say ...I just drop by to hear more on cancer on children...

We are from when we are touched or sad about something we share that sadness or tell the other person Im not sure up there..Im sending my prayers to you ..