Saturday, September 4, 2010

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Each day, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer. Each day, 11 children die as a result of childhood cancer. It is the number one killer disease of our children, more than more than from asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital anomalies, and pediatric AIDS combined. Did you know that 1 in 300 children will be diagnosed with cancer before age 20 and that 35-40,000 are in treatment every day? Yet only 3% of all cancer research money goes to childhood cancer. Our war against childhood cancer is vastly under-publicized and under-funded. It is the Inconvenient Truth America needs to be aware of.

I don’t know how many of you readers have ever been on a pediatric oncology floor. If you have ever walked the halls and seen the smiles or tears on the faces of these little fighters as they play on the little trikes and big wheels. How the moms and dads race behind them with the ever present IV pole. How they have little child-sized masks on because they are at high risk of infection. How the teens hang together and still try to be cool, even though they’re bald and ready to throw up at any time. How the teens have added words like methotrexate, hydration, and limb-salvage; and acronyms like ANC and GCSF to their vocabulary, instead of LOL and "sweet". How the poor little babies cry because they can't even relate what hurts. Or if you've ever seen a mom or dad alone in the parent room at 3 am, with their head in their hands, feeling alone, helpless, scared and mad. I don't know if you've ever visited a Care Page or a Caring Bridge site besides this one, blogs where we tell our kid's stories. I've seen it all and more. I have watched my child be one of those teens, I have been one of 'those parents' in the parent room. I have seen enough. I have lived through it. I am still living it. I will forever live it.

• Each day that cooperative group pediatric cancer research goes under funded the road to discovering new treatments and cures become longer, putting more children at risk.
• For the first time since its founding, the decrease in funding to the Children’s Oncology Group moves research to a dangerous level where studies and accompanying laboratory research that hold promise will not take place.
• Reduce Enrollment in Clinical Trials: The COG reduced enrollment in our clinical trials by 400 patients in 2007 and put about 20 new studies on hold indefinitely related to resources available to fund them.
• At a time when breakthroughs can be made in treating all childhood cancer and the quality of life for children with cancer improved, the continued decline in government funding will endanger the development of new clinical trials and threaten progress in curing childhood cancer.

Remember September~~~Gold ribbons for Childhood Cancer Awareness. Awareness = funding. We need to save our children!! Please get the word out!

I hope you all have a good day today. We are going to Apple Hill today. Usually we go on my birthday weekend, but it seems that alot of the apples are gone by then, so we are going a few weeks earlier this year. Thanks for stopping by. God bless you all.

Kristi and the Koury Klan