February 13, 2020
Dear Friend,
Every year since our son Joey was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2005, I consider whether to again shave my head to raise money for children's cancer research. This year I've been moved by the story of Joel and Seth Decker, St. Baldrick's 2020 Angel ambassadors. Their story was also told in People magazine.
Joel and Seth, twin brothers, just like Joey and Robbie Chamness. But while Briget and I have enjoyed watching Joey and Robbie graduate from college last year and launch their careers in Houston and Chicago respectively, Joel and Seth’s parents are suffering from the incomprehensible loss of their toddler twin sons.
The Decker twins each died from acute myeloid leukemia, a relatively common type of cancer in adults and children and one that has a higher survival rate than many other cancers. But as scientific research is increasingly demonstrating, several cancer types, including AML, are genetically different in children than adults. That is why drugs developed and approved to treat cancer in adults may not always be effective or appropriate for children with the same cancer types. And that is why I ask you to support my St. Baldrick’s fundraising yet again this year – because St. Baldrick’s research is dedicated to, and only to, pediatric cancer research.
Thanks to research funded by St. Baldrick’s, new and more effective treatments have emerged in the 15 years I’ve been going bald in March, and survival rates have improved. But research also shows that developing a life-threatening health problem or dying early as a result of treatment approaches 60% by age 50.
Research is the only way to diminish and defeat this horrible disease, yet only 4% of U.S. National Cancer Institute funding goes to childhood cancer.
So that's why I am again asking for your generous support on my soon-to-be bald head. You can give directly here https://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/1052733/2020 or by phone (888-899-BALD). Credit cards are the easiest way to give, or you can send or bring a check payable to “St. Baldrick's Foundation."
If you're in Indianapolis on Friday, March 20, please join us at the Northside Knights of Columbus. It's a fun and memorable party, with a buffet dinner beginning at 6 p.m. It may be the only event you'll attend this year where you can mingle with brave baldies, leading pediatric oncologists and survivors of pediatric cancer.
Please join us in celebrating the lives of pediatric cancer victims and the lives of survivors like Joey and help us fund research aimed at making sure that parents like the Deckers don’t have to suffer the excruciating agony of losing twins to cancer.
Thank you.
Chuck
