I may be a one-shavee show, but I'll be just as bald – and I hope you'll cheer me on with a donation! The St. Baldrick's Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity that funds more in childhood cancer research grants than any organization except the U.S. government. I have created a team for this awesome event and I'd love to have other people join and help raise money for St. Baldrick's. Please message me if you'd like to be on my team, "Shave it for Pete's Sake." Your gift will give hope to infants, children, teens and young adults fighting childhood cancers. So when I ask for your support, I'm really asking you to support these kids. Thank you! THANK YOU ALL IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR DONATIONS. http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/520657/2012 (this is the link to my page on their web site - cut and copy) Pete's dad is a long-time friend of my husband. They have known each other more than 20 years. ************************************************************* HERE'S PETE'S STORY, as written by his mother - Kellei Martin. (Used with her permission from Pete's Caring Bridge page) Pete was diagnosed with a Pineoblastoma (extremely rare and aggressive brain tumor) in Oct. of 2005 at the age of 22 month. He completed 1 year of treatment, which consisted of 40 weeks of chemo. and 6 weeks of daily conformal radiation. He has had a total of 5 brain surgeries. Pete had his 17th N.E.D. (no evidence of disease) report on Aug. 2, 2011. He is currently back home in Southern Oregon and "stable". He travels back to St. Jude in Memphis for checkups every year. His next check up is scheduled for August of 2012. Pete is getting ready for 2nd grade and turned 8 on December 8th. Background Story On Tues., Oct. 11, 2005 (at the age of 22 months) Peter started walking with a limp. We took him to the doctor the following day. They took X-rays of his leg, which didn’t show anything. He had a slight ear infection, so the doctor thought it was causing his equilibrium to be off. The following day, he woke up vomiting. Then, his nose started running. It seemed he had some sort of cold. His limping started getting worse to the point where he was unable to run. I just knew something was not right. I told Jeff I thought the problem was something inside his head... Unfortunately, I was right. On Fri., I took him back to the doctor. He was admitted to RVMC in Medford, OR where he had a CT Scan. The mass in his brain was very obvious. The air transport team from Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland (about 300 miles away) flew down a couple hours later and picked Pete and I up. He was in the pediatric ICU for one week, while he underwent two biopsies of the tumor. We were told he had a very large brain tumor about 5cm across. The pathology came back as a malignant PNET (primitive neuroectodermal tumor) specifically a Pineoblastoma. It is located in the fluid filled third ventricle of his brain. The neurosurgeon in Portland did not feel comfortable removing the tumor. We were told that because of his young age, Chemo was our only option. We were sent home and asked to return the following week for Pete to start his treatment. The moment my sister Kim found out about Pete’s tumor, she was on the Internet constantly doing research. As soon as we returned home, I was doing the same thing. We knew that Pete’s chance of beating this was if the tumor was removed. We felt that we had a week to find a surgeon who could do it. We sent his records to pediatric neurosurgeons all over the country. My sister mentioned St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to me. On Wed., Oct. 26 I went to their web site and called Peter’s pediatrician’s office to ask them to do a referral. A little while later, I received a call from the brain tumor coordinator at St. Jude and sent her his records overnight. First thing in the morning, she emailed me to let me know she had received them and was taking them to the neurosurgeon. About 10 minutes later, the surgeon called me and said what I had been waiting to hear, "We have to get that out." St. Jude agreed to take Pete as a patient and set everything into motion. This was a Thurs, we were on the plane to St. Jude in Memphis, TN on Sunday. He had his first appointment at St. Jude on Halloween - Monday, Oct. 31, 2005. He had his tumor resection surgery Wed. Nov. 2. It took about six hours. They had to go down between the right and left sides of the brain and through the corpus callosum (which connects the two halves and is essentially the brain's nerve highway) and remove the tumor a little piece at a time. They were able to remove the entire tumor, except a very small piece that was "hiding" from the surgeon. We were told he might not speak for days or weeks after surgery and that he might have weakness on the left side of his body. He woke up in the ICU crying for Mama! That was some of the best news! He did experience weakness in his left side. But, it didn’t slow him down. He would still hold his sippy cup with that hand and struggle to get it to his mouth. He continued to get stronger and stronger each day. The treatment protocol Pete was on consisted of 20 weeks of Chemo followed by 6 weeks of conformal (pin point) radiation of the tumor bed followed by another 20 weeks of Chemo. After his first 10 weeks of chemo, he had an MRI which showed the residual piece of tumor was responding well and seemed to be shrinking. He had his 1st no evidence of disease scan after his second 10 weeks of chemo. Pete finished his conformal radiation on May 23, 2006. He had another no evidence of disease (N.E.D.) MRI and lumbar puncture on June 19th, then he started his final 20 weeks of chemo. On Aug. 23, 2006 he had a 3rd N.E.D.! On Oct. 27, 2006 he had a 4th N.E.D. and is considered stable. He completed his treatment protocol on Oct. 29, 2006. Jan. 9, 2007 5th N.E.D. March 28, 2007 6th N.E.D. June 25, 2007 7th N.E.D. Oct. 4, 2007 8th N.E.D. Feb. 4, 2008 9th N.E.D. June 16, 2008 10th N.E.D. Dec. 31, 2008 11th N.E.D. April 8, 2009 12th N.E.D. June 10, 2009 13th N.E.D. Nov. 30, 2009 14th N.E.D. July 7, 2010 15th N.E.D. - he also had his omaya (medicine port in his head) removed. Feb. 2, 2011 16th N.E.D. Aug. 3, 2011 17th N.E.D. We are currently at home in Oregon and travel back to Memphis every 6 months for check ups. ************************************************************* DID YOU KNOW? * One in every 330 Americans develops cancer before the age of twenty. * On the average, 36 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer everyday in the United States. * On the average, one in every four elementary schools has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are current or former cancer patients. * Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15 in the United States. * Childhood cancers affect more potential patient-years of life than any other cancer except breast and lung cancer. * The causes of most childhood cancers are unknown. At present, childhood cancer cannot be prevented. * Childhood cancer occurs regularly, randomly and spares no ethnic group, socioeconomic class, or geographic region. In the United States, the incidence of cancer among adolescents and young adults is increasing at a greater rate than any other age group, except those over 65 years. * Despite these facts, childhood cancer research is vastly and consistently underfunded.