The Childhood Cancer Blog
The Childhood Cancer Blog
Lauren and Brent, together, photo credit: Tony Gray
Ann with her daughter Lauren, photo credit: Kevin Kopanski
Brent, photo credit: Chris Langer
The Ramer family
One of the few professional photos that Ann Ramer has of her middle two kids, shows a smiling 15-year-old Lauren and a 17-year-old Brent. Not pictured: the IV lines tucked just out of the frame that are delivering chemotherapy to Lauren, who was in treatment for childhood cancer. It’s her fourth time—and her brother Brent’s fourth or fifth, depending on how you count the number of times his leukemia relapsed.
Ann remembers the day it was taken. She was juggling regular life for her family of six with getting Brent to the oncology clinic for a check up for his relapsed acute myeloid... Read More
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
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