Each September, I join forces with thousands of “soldiers” and beg and plead with our nation and world to take a look at childhood cancer. I wrote the following in one of the books I published and with recent events, it might seem like a cruel comparison, but please know that childhood cancer IS cruel and it is killing kids in a violent and painful way every day.
I realize that a majority of people are not intimately acquainted with pediatric cancer. That’s a good thing. I don’t want it to be so common that we all understand it. I’m glad that technically, it meets the definition of “rare” (but believe me, it is not rare). I truly hope it never becomes “common”.
When you are engaged in this tight-knit community of kids with cancer and their families, it feels like childhood cancer is as common as colds. It feels like you are constantly surrounded by sickness and death. It feels like you are screaming your head off trying to get anyone to pay attention to it.
Most people see television ads with adorable little bald kids hanging out with celebrities or hear about kids getting wish trips to Disney, and the image of childhood cancer becomes “cute”. But, please know that childhood cancer is a cruel and hideous monster that is far from cute.
Imagine with me for just a moment a school shooting (I know that is not hard to do since those seem to happen way too frequently). A man with a gun has broken into a school and has shot 47 kids. Seven of those kids are killed while the others are sent to area hospitals to fight for their lives. This not only makes national news. It makes international news doesn’t it? Imagine now that it happens again the next day. A shooter walks into a school and shoots 47 kids. Seven die and the others are sent to hospitals to fight for their lives. It happens the next day. And the next. It happens over and over again every single day all year long and then the next year, it happens again.
See where I am going? We would be devastated by that kind of loss and we wouldn’t say it’s “rare”. We would be screaming at the top of our lungs for laws and bills and security measures to be in place to end this horror story. Yet, this scene does happen every single day. About 47 children are diagnosed with cancer every day. And 7 children die of cancer every day.
By the end of this year 1,800 kids in the United States will die of cancer. Around 17,000 people under the age of 20 will be diagnosed with cancer and begin the fight for their lives that is anything but cute.
Cancer is not just one disease. Cancer is hundreds of diseases and kids typically suffer much more than adults. The reasons for this are very complex, but the gist of it is that their tiny bodies are still growing and developing and the therapies to try to save their lives are highly toxic. That’s right, we are poisoning their tiny growing bodies.
I know many pediatric oncologists and I adore them. What a big calling to have on your life - to try to kill cancer in kids, to see kids dying every day, to fight out there on a battlefield every day where you see massive pain and suffering of babies. Bless everyone who works in pediatric oncology!
No one wants to have to give chemotherapy agents to any person of any age, but especially kids. Sure, chemo can kill cancer cells, but it also kills healthy cells. Among the kids who survive cancer, almost all of them are left with vast side effects and late effects including infertility, rotting out teeth, damage to their heart and other internal organs, increased risk for developing secondary and third cancers and much more.
Research is crucial. Not only do we need to learn more about how malignancies develop in kids, but we also need to work hard to develop better therapies, therapies that kill cancer cells while leaving normal, healthy cells alone. And, this is being done. It is costly and it is very time-consuming.
For us to finish this fight, we need a strong and vast army to put on their gold, to raise their voices in unity, and to donate their money and time to ending childhood cancer forever. I ask you to pick up a sword on behalf of the kids and their families who are worn out from the war on childhood cancer and fight on their behalf. Y’all, they need us. Thank you for your support of Bell Asteri and the organizations we hold so close to our hearts. I firmly believe that the day is coming when we can declare a great victory over childhood cancer. You’re all my heroes!
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