Help Find A Cure For The Deadliest Childhood Disease

A plea from the grandmother of a child with leukemia:

Since my 7-year old granddaughter, Lily, was diagnosed with Pre-B ALL (Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia) on December 1, 2008, our family has been reading a lot about childhood cancer and the research into finding cures. There’s not much funding for childhood cancer research.

Each school day, 46 children (two classrooms full!) are diagnosed with some form of cancer. In the past three days TWO children whose cancer journeys I’ve been following have died. A two year old named Kayla, and a 5-year old named Addison. Addison had the same kind of leukemia as Lily – had a positive prognosis, but then caught a bug and she couldn’t overcome it. Addison is the one that when Lily was first diagnosed, the doctor told my daughter they needed to get to know her because she was doing so well and would provide such encouragement for them. And then just a few weeks later, she is gone.

Finding a cure for childhood cancer is a life-or-death issue. Just take a brief trip to a children’s oncology hall at a hospital, and your own life will never be the same. These children can’t advocate for themselves because they’re literally fighting for their lives. It is up to us to be their advocates. So you can start by doing the following:

(1) Go to this web address: Citizen’s Briefing Book
(2) In the search box, type “childhood cancer”
(3) Click on the top item “Increased Funding for Childhood Cancer” (The one that was posted at 4:02 P.M.)
(4) Click on the “Vote UP” button. If you don’t already have an account, you will have to create an account. However, it’s free, and it’s quick – and the effort is worth it.
(5) You can read the letter along with the comments. You can log in or create an account if you would like to leave your own comment.

Janice Shaw at Townhall has more:

During the past six weeks, our extended family has been learning things that nobody ever wants to learn.  On December 1, 2008, my niece’s 7-year-old daughter, Lily, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL).  Today’s adults remember when such a diagnosis was a death sentence; 40 years ago patients with ALL had a four percent survival rate.  Now children with Lily’s type of leukemia have a 90 percent survival rate, because St. Jude’s hospital in Memphis made it their main mission in the 60s to discover treatments that work against childhood leukemia.  Researchers at St. Jude’s were criticized by those who believed that children with cancer should be allowed to die in peace rather than go through the horrible treatment that they had to endure.  Our family and thousands of others are so grateful that the researches prevailed and persevered.

*****

The wonderful doctors at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville described leukemia for Lily as a weed that was taking over a garden.  They challenged her to help them get rid of the weeds in her blood.  As a result, Lily named her website Lily’s Garden, www.lilysgarden.org. She wants to replace the weeds in her garden with beautiful lilies!

Lily’s family is challenging people to sign up for Nashville’s Country Music Marathon (CMM) on April 25, 2009, with the Leukemia/Lymphoma society as the main charity for the event. Anyone can register by going to www.cmmarathon.com.  Those who register for the CMM, can join Lily’s team by registering at her website, www.lilysgarden.org.  Lily’s team will have T-shirts and arm bands emblazoned with the slogan, “Walking to Weed Out Leukemia.”  The shirts are a shade of purple that suits both men and women.  More than 50 people have already signed up with Lily’s team; we’d love to have a sea of purple.

Please visit the linked sites if you’d like to help out.

Thanks to Cotillion sister, Carol, The Median Sib, for the information.

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