The Childhood Cancer Blog
The Childhood Cancer Blog
Twenty-two years and six weeks ago, Alex held her last lemonade stand. Although we were surrounded by love and support, our hearts were breaking. We knew it was her last. We knew it was the beginning of the end: the end of her years of lemonade stands, the end of her battle with cancer, and the closing of the precious time we had left together.
Then on August 1, 2004, our beautiful daughter, Alexandra Scott, died. She was 8 years old.
I really didn’t think we could hold a lemonade stand without her. They were her stands, with “Alex’s” painted on the top signposts. What... Read More
Raymeer was just four months old when an undifferentiated soft tissue sarcoma blocked his airway, causing him to stop breathing.
At age 3, Declan developed headaches that led to the diagnosis of central nervous system rhabdomyosarcoma.
Sonia thought her relentless cough was caused by pneumonia or another respiratory illness. Instead, she learned she had metastatic Ewing sarcoma.
Lakelynn was diagnosed with a rare, inoperable sarcoma at age 3
Taylor was 11 years old when pain in her arm—initially thought to be a sports injury—was diagnosed as osteosarcoma.
Sarcomas account for at least 11% of all pediatric cancer diagnoses,* affecting nearly 1,800 children in the United States each year. The word sarcoma comes from the Greek words for "fleshy" and "tumor," reflecting the fact that these cancers arise in the body's connective tissues. More than 70 different types of sarcoma can affect children, making diagnosis and treatment especially complex.
Because sarcomas can develop almost anywhere in the body, they vary widely in how they grow and how they... Read More
Mike Adkins, Dad to Lily, Chloe and Nicholas
Mike Fee, Dad to Andy
Tony Salerno, Dad to Tony and Sam
David Saenz, Dad to Arden and Alina
Gabe Stephens, Dad to Della
Nick Gilger, Dad to Edie and Kinsey
Bill Fitzgerald, Dad to Cole, Maeve, and Maggie
Craig Boerlin, with grandson Nate
Brandon Issacs, Dad to Emilia, Lynnea, and Louie
On the way to the emergency room, just hours before we would learn our daughter had cancer, my husband Mike turned to me and said, “Whatever this is, we will be okay. Right? We will.”
Our daughter, Lily, was 14 months old, sitting rear-facing in the back seat. As she watched where we had been, Mike was driving us toward where we would go: the emergency room at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the PICU, operating rooms, the oncology floor, Houston for proton radiation therapy, years of physical and occupational therapy, shunt failures, MRIs, and countless moments when we had to... Read More
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