babies with cancer

Usually, we pick one international winner of the Robert J. Arceci Innovation Award, but what happens when there are two equally deserving researchers with big ideas and big hearts for kids with cancer? Read on to find out!

Dr. Robert Arceci was a passionate innovator who dreamed big. He was a pioneer who knew that kids with cancer deserve better than what doctors can offer them and that breakthroughs are born from taking risks.

That’s why the international winner of the award established in his memory – the Robert J. Arceci Innovation Award – is given the resources and the freedom to follow their curiosity, pioneering spirit, and their passion for kids’ cancer research, wherever it leads.

Except this year, it’s winners of the Robert J. Arceci Innovation Award!

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Earlier this year, Matt posted the following blog on his website. He was shocked by the response. “The comments and emails came flooding in,” Matt said. Read about what it’s really like to be a cancer dad, and check out Matt’s follow-up post about what he’s learned from his fellow cancer dads since then.

As a veteran childhood cancer parent, I have seen countless fathers rise to the challenge of being cancer dads, whether holding a vomit bucket while their child empties their insides, squeezing into a tiny bed with their child overnight in the hospital, or delivering countless meds through syringes. I have been witness to ordinary dads becoming extraordinary, just as I have seen ordinary moms do the same.

But judging by the articles and comments you see out there, you’d never know that many dads play an active role in their child’s cancer fight. From the numerous “Things Only Cancer Moms Know” articles that have nothing mom-specific listed, to the term “momcologist,” the overwhelming majority of articles on cancer parents only focus on the mothers.

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Anyone can get cancer — even babies. Dr. Erin Breese, a St. Baldrick’s Fellow studying infant leukemia, explains the signs, symptoms and treatment of babies with cancer, and how research is helping pinpoint better therapies so babies with cancer can grow up to live long, healthy lives.

Can babies get cancer?

Unfortunately, cancer can occur at any age including during infancy. According to recent statistics, roughly 23 of every 100,000 babies are diagnosed with cancer each year.

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Honored Kid Ben was an astonishing 15 days old when he was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. The tiny baby was a fighter and now, seven years later, Ben is cancer free. “He can hit his head and fall down and whatever. He just gets back up with a smile and keeps going like there’s nothing that stops him,” said his mom, Erin.

Erin Worsham’s pregnancy was flawless.

The ultrasounds looked great. Everything went smoothly.

A week after he arrived, even the pediatrician remarked that Ben was perfect.

There was no indication of what was to come.

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Peter’s daughter Maddie was diagnosed with childhood cancer in February 2011. After a long journey of surgeries, chemo and radiation, the 4-year-old girl’s scans have been clean and her father has been profoundly changed by the experience. Peter explains.

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During a vacation to Disneyland, the Devaty family experienced loss no family should ever have to endure. Be a part of the fight against childhood cancer — donate today.

Joe, his wife and their two youngest boys drove south from their San Francisco Bay Area home together a couple days after Thanksgiving, looking forward to a family vacation at Disneyland.

Little Jonah seemed perfectly fine on the way down. He was a born traveler, his dad said.

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Tacey Raye first battled cancer as a baby, losing her sight in the process. Now, years later, the high school freshman and Texas rodeo queen is facing yet another diagnosis. Help kids like Tacey. Donate today.

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September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Do something to help kids with cancer.

For my daughter Lilly’s first Thanksgiving, there was no turkey, no fancy dress, no family pinching her cheeks. Instead, she got a line placement surgery, chemotherapy, and her first puke bucket.

When Lilly was 6 days old I had noticed a little bump on her upper chest wall. After an x-ray and an ultrasound, the doctors told me it was a birthmark and it was normal for it to get bigger as she grew.

In three months it had grown to the size of a golf ball and was starting to affect her breathing while she slept. I knew then that it wasn’t just a birthmark.

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Peggy is raising money for children’s cancer research in honor of her niece Lilli. Donate through this weekend and your gift will be matched by an anonymous corporate sponsor!

When Peggy Davis sat down to shave her head for the second time, she was nervous. “I wasn’t nervous about being bald because I already knew what that was like,” she said. “But I was nervous about being in front of 5,000 people doing it.”

She was onstage at Northwest String Summit, an annual bluegrass festival in North Plains, Oregon. It was the last day of the festival during the headlining band’s set break, and all eyes were on her.

And as her eyes scanned the crowd adorned in pink, she remembered her niece Lilli.

Lilli was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, when she was 8 months old. Although ALL normally carries a good prognosis, when it strikes children under 1 year old, the disease is much more aggressive and difficult to treat.

But despite spending the better part of four years in treatment, Lilli never stopped being a kid. She danced. She sang. She played. She wore costumes to the hospital.

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When Megan Flynn, a pregnant mother of two, joined a cancer registry funded in part by the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, she was hoping to get some answers to the questions she had about a rare cancer she had developed at 17. She never dreamed she’d end up saving her own baby’s life.

But that was how doctors discovered she had a rare genetic mutation that likely played a role in the development of her childhood cancer — and that led to her infant son’s rare lung cancer.

Megan’s childhood cancer

When Megan was diagnosed with a rare ovarian cancer called Sertoli-Leydig cell tumor in 1997, no one knew much about her type of cancer, let alone what caused it. After surgery and five years of follow-up scans to make sure the cancer hadn’t returned, Megan was sent on her way.

She graduated college, got married, and started having kids of her own, always wondering in the back of her mind what had caused her cancer and if it was something she should worry about with her own children. “I just never really had any answers,” she said.

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