Kids with Cancer

Update on Ambassador Pietro: Conquering Cancer, Conquering Mountains [PHOTO ESSAY]

by Rebecca Bernot, St. Baldrick's Foundation
December 12, 2013

2011_Ambassador_Pietro

2011 Ambassador Pietro when he was in treatment for brain cancer.

You might remember 2011 Ambassador Pietro as the 11-year-old boy who won a local math competition just five days after undergoing brain surgery. Diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a form of brain cancer, he endured a 10-hour operation to remove the tumor, followed by radiation and chemotherapy — and he still went on to win the math competition at the state level.

Now in remission, Pietro is in high school and continues to excel academically while keeping busy with extracurricular activities, including robotics, band, and the debate team. He’ll be learning to drive soon, much to the relief of his parents, who currently shuttle him to and from activities.

Despite all his accomplishments, childhood cancer and its treatments were not without their consequences. Pietro often felt tired, and the persistent fatigue prevented him from participating in one of his favorite activities: skiing.

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Families

Life After Chemo: Hope, Faith, and Big Steps

by Patty Furco
December 10, 2013

After Abby completed treatment for childhood cancer, her mom had to adjust to a new “normal.”

What do we do now?

Abby

Abby was diagnosed with Ph+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an aggressive form of childhood cancer, when she was 4.

We are just entering the stage of “after.” The protocol is over. Chemo is done. I haven’t given Abby a chemo pill in two months.

After doing that daily — along with a whole host of different treatments — for the last 32 months, it’s scary to stop.

We are extremely thankful for what we have and that we still have Abby here with us. But to say that we are celebrating every day isn’t true. At times I find myself holding my breath and waiting.

Every time I hear her coughing or complaining of something, my mind goes all over the place. For the past almost-three years, it’s never been just a cold; it was usually pneumonia. It never was just a tummy ache; it was C. diff, rotavirus, typhlitis, you name it. And now, without the safety net of chemo, is it the dreaded “R-word” — relapse?

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Families

Seeing Christmas in a New Light

by Katie Vescelus
December 5, 2013

After childhood cancer took Matthias’ sight, Christmas changed forever.

Matthias-mom-Christmas-tree
Cancer changed us in many ways; sometimes I don’t even recognize our lives anymore. Many of these changes aren’t bad — we have a deeper respect for life, an appreciation of health, and a conscious enjoyment of every moment with loved ones.

Some of the changes were difficult, and we’ve accepted them. Even the way we celebrate holidays has changed.

I’ve always enjoyed Christmas, and having children makes this time of year even more magical. In 2008, we were excited to celebrate Matthias’ first Christmas, along with Magnus, who was 2 at the time, and just starting to participate in all of the excitement of the season.

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Do What You Want

Send a Holiday E-Card and Give the Gift of Childhood Cancer Research

by Emily Kilpatrick, St. Baldrick's Foundation
December 3, 2013

Send a gift to someone you love! (Or someone you sorta like.) Send a holiday e-card!

St-Baldricks-e-card

To send an e-card:

  1. Go to www.stbaldricks.org/moments-like-this
  2. Click the green “Give A Donation” button
  3. (optional) To have your gift benefit a St. Baldrick’s participant, click “Choose an Event, Participant, Team, or Fundraiser” at the top of the page
  4. Complete the form to make a donation and click “Submit Your Donation”
  5. Complete your e-card and click “Send”

That’s it! Your gift recipient will get your e-card in their email inbox, letting them know that you gave them the gift of childhood cancer research.

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Teens & Young Adults

Sarah’s Story: Thank You for Giving to Childhood Cancer Research

by St. Baldrick's Foundation
November 26, 2013

Sarah gives hope and thanks after fighting cancer for the second time. You can give hope to kids with cancer, too.  Fund Research

Sarah-thanksgiving-fall-trees
Sarah was diagnosed with biphenotypic leukemia — a rare combination of both acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia — at the age of 14, enduring 20 months of chemotherapy. In 2008, she celebrated five years in remission.

Then a checkup in June 2010 revealed that the leukemia had returned. Sarah’s only hope for a cure was a stem cell transplant.

“There’s no easy way to say what it’s like being a young adult with cancer … it’s harder than you can imagine,” Sarah says. “The physical and emotional tolls were just awful and for the longest time, I couldn’t remember feeling well. I had a lot of pain, nausea, and was so weak I couldn’t do even the simplest of things.”

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Families

A Moment of Peace and Gratitude With Song

by Katie Vescelus
November 21, 2013

Baby_Matthias_and_mom

Matthias was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a childhood cancer of the eye, when he was an infant.

Matthias was diagnosed with cancer when he was just 3 months old, so we had all of the normal challenges of a baby compounded by him being sick.

Matthias never took a pacifier. He had a wicked gag reflex, so we had to find other ways to soothe him. Music became his pacifier, and we relied on it heavily.

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Families

Choosing to Smile and Remembering Ty, One Year Later

by Cindy Campbell
November 15, 2013

My son Ty died of a brain tumor one year ago.

Cindy_and_Ty

Cindy Campbell with her son, Ty.

Ty’s childhood cancer journey was horrific, and he suffered side effects from treatment that no child should endure. He couldn’t walk for more than two years; his speech was slurred and difficult to understand; he was often unable to eat or enjoy any kind of food for months on end; he lost mobility in his arms and could no longer hold a toy, eventually losing his ability to even hold his own head up.

Despite all of this, when I asked him what he wanted to do when he was all better, his answer was simple: “I’m gonna jump in a muddy puddle!”

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Families

We Had a Choice: Abby’s Fight Against Ph+ Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

by Joe Furco
November 7, 2013

“Your child has cancer.”

Abby_in_treatment

When Abby was 4, she was diagnosed with Ph+ ALL, a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer.

I doubt anyone can get past those four words, but at some point, we had to come to terms with them. Like most parents, our response on that day in February, between gasps and tears, was simply, “What do we do now?”

“What do we do now?” began on February 16, 2011, but it didn’t stop that day when our 4-year-old daughter, Abby, was diagnosed with pre-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

“Every child is different, every disease is different, but this is relatively good news,” explained the doctor. “ALL is one of the most common forms of leukemia, and great advances in treatment have been made.”

One week into chemotherapy treatment, Abby’s diagnosis got more complicated when we learned she had Philadelphia chromosome positive (Ph+) ALL, an aggressive subtype of leukemia. Our oncologists let us know that the recommended care would involve a bone marrow transplant.

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