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CANCER is not CHILDSPLAY!
Let's fight pediatric cancer by staying informed. Here are
some links that might help.
Team Unite (Grassroots organization of volunteers working to raise awareness and secure funding for pediatric cancers.)
Yay Chili's! In 2008, Chili's
donated $6,000,000
(no typo there--that's six zeroes--SIX MILLION DOLLARS!)
to St. Jude's Hospital.
Way to go Chili's!
Paxten has his own Memorial Page.
Check it out by clicking here.
"But because my servant Caleb
has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will
bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it."
Numbers 14:24
The Spady Family & the Lawrimore Family
Mount Pisgah, July 25, 2008
Please pray for this family as they celebrate the gift of life.
Ten-year-old Caleb (the only boy in the picture wearing glasses) is fighting a DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma) brain tumor. Kim, his mother, finished treatments for breast cancer shortly
before Caleb was diagnosed. For this family, every day together is a fleeting treasure. They delight in each other, spend
more time laughing and last time nitpicking, enjoy more leisure moments, and take more pictures of time spent together. Our
family feels blessed to have been in one of those precious photos.
(Jacob, their oldest, is 12, Seth--in the orange--is 5, and Luke is 6.)
TEXAS RANGERS ADD NEW RECRUIT
Read the article written by Shawn Shroyer of texasrangers.com here:
Caleb was granted a wish by Make a Wish of
Oklahoma & North Texas: to be a Texas Ranger for the day! He had an absolutely magical day--September 19, 2008. I think
I'm a Ranger's fan now. Go Caleb!
Did you know that DIPG
- stands for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma?
- is a brain tumor in the pons portion of the brain?
- is currently incurable?
- is one of many pediatric cancers that offers little hope for survival?
- offers children about six months to a year of life after diagnosis and
radiation?
- can not be surgically treated--it's diffused, scattered, through the pons
(in the center of the brain)?
- is random and could affect someone you love at any moment?
Spread the word about DIPG because
"One day a child with DIPG will
be healed. Maybe even today.
. ."
Childhood
Cancer Facts
Childhood cancers are the #1 disease
killer of children — more than asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and pediatric AIDS combined.
One in every 330 children will develop
cancer before the age of 19.
The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) federal budget was
$4.6 billion. Of that, breast cancer received 12%, prostate cancer received 7%, and all 12 major
groups of pediatric cancers combined received less than 3%.
Childhood cancer is not a single disease, but rather many different
types that fall into 12 major categories. Common adult cancers are extremely rare in children, yet many cancers are almost
exclusively found in children.
One out of every five children diagnosed
with cancer dies.
Common cancer symptoms in children — fever,
swollen glands, anemia, bruises and infection — are often suspected to be, and at the early stages are
treated as, other childhood illnesses.
Three out of every five children diagnosed with cancer suffer from long-term or late onset side effects.
Childhood Cancers are cancers that primarily affect children,
teens, and young adults. When cancer strikes children and young adults it affects them differently
than it would an adult.
Attempts to detect childhood cancers at an earlier stage, when
the disease would react more favorably to treatment, have largely failed. Young patients often
have a more advanced stage of cancer when first diagnosed. (Approximately 20% of adults with cancer show evidence
the disease has spread, yet almost 80% of children show that the cancer has spread to distant sites at the time of diagnosis).
Cancer in childhood occurs regularly, randomly, and spares no ethnic group, socioeconomic class, or geographic region.
The cause of most childhood cancers are unknown and at present,
cannot be prevented. (Most adult cancers result from lifestyle factors such as
smoking, diet, occupation, and other exposure to cancer-causing agents).
Nationally, childhood cancer is 20
times more prevalent than pediatric AIDS yet pediatric AIDS receives four times
the funding that childhood cancer receives.
On the average, 12,500 children and
adolescents in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer each year.
On the average, one in every four
elementary schools has a child with cancer.
On the average, every high school
in America has two students who are a current or former cancer patient.
In the U.S., about 46 children and
adolescents are diagnosed with cancer every single school day. That's about the equivalent of two entire classrooms.
While the cancer death rate has dropped more dramatically for
children than for any other age group, 2,300 children and teenagers will die each year from cancer.
Today, up to 75% of the children with cancer can be cured, yet,
some forms of childhood cancers have proven so resistant to treatment that, in spite of research, a
cure is illusive.
Several childhood cancers continue
to have a very poor prognosis, including: brain stem tumors, metastatic sarcomas, relapsed acute lymphoblastic
leukemia, and relapsed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
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