The Childhood Cancer Blog
The Childhood Cancer Blog
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
Arden was diagnosed as a 1-year-old with neuroblastoma. Today, Arden is 8 and a childhood cancer survivor.
At 19 years old, Breeone needed to make fast decisions about preserving her fertility before starting treatment for a rare tumor. (Photo credit: Tony Gray, for Flashes of Hope)
Chris was a senior in high school when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He is now an adult and a dad.
In 1989, researchers interviewed 1,928 survivors of childhood cancer. These, then-adults, had been diagnosed with childhood cancer between 1945 and 1974. Nearly 20% of the survivors didn’t know what type of cancer they had; 14% said they didn’t even know they had cancer at all and instead recalled a vague, unnamed childhood malady.
Most of the interviewed were truly lucky to be alive. In the 1940s, childhood cancer was overwhelmingly fatal. In the 1960s, five-year survival rates increased to 28%, thanks to extremely high doses of chemotherapy, and then in the 1970s, multi-... Read More
Kaitlin, mom to Josie (in remission from Leukemia), Nolan and Noah
Trish, mom to Ryan, brain tumor survivor and senior in high school
Keren, mom to Cole, Maggie and Maeve
Princecine, mom to Ailani, who was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 3 years old
Heather, mom to CJ and Gabby
Taylor, Childhood cancer survivor and now, mom to a son and a daughter
Kaitlin had two little boys at home when her youngest child, Josie, was diagnosed with leukemia. Josie was just a baby, and some days felt impossibly long. Kaitlin remembers wondering how she could keep going before realizing that somehow, she already was.
And she wasn’t alone.
“There is a whole community of moms standing beside me, holding me up when it feels too heavy,” she said.
Childhood cancer changes motherhood forever. It reshapes everyday life, deepens fear and love, and creates a bond between mothers who understand what no one else can.
This Mother’... Read More
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