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People close to me know that through this journey one family, the first I met at St. Jude - the mother, Nicole became my sister. Over the 4 months of treatments we spent hours texting, calling and checking on each other and were there for each other. We share a bond that only someone that has experienced this pain can fully understand. I have been sleeping for a week with my phone under my pillow in case she needed me. At 3:40am I got a text from her that simply said, "He's finally free". At 3:30am Jesus took Baby Wade home. I cried for him, I cried for his Momma who fought this disease for her son with so much love and dedication. If you knew this child, you knew there was always something special about him, he always smiled and always laughed - his spirit was beautiful and gentle. So today, I will place this information up that his mother wants people to know and no doubt she will remain a warrior against childhood cancer, as we all should.
Her message:
This gold ribbon stands for Pediatric Cancer and here
are some unacceptable statistics
Over 12,400 children in the United States are diagnosed with cancer each year, 4,000 children will die each year.
Cancer is the #2 overall killer of children, the #1 being vehicle related accidents. It remains responsible for more deaths from ages 1-19 than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and AIDS combined.
It is estimated that approximately $1 billion in research is needed to develop a new drug/cure for each of the 12 most common pediatric subtypes. Childhood cancer as a whole receives about $130 million/year in funding. At that rate, it will take 100 years to develop these drugs and 250,000 children will die.
Childhood cancer research is woefully underfunded compared to adult cancers. For every six research dollars per patient with AIDS and every one research dollar per patient with breast cancer, a child with cancer receives only 30 cents.
1 OUT OF EVERY 5 CHILDREN DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER DIES.
Approximately 20% of adults with cancer show evidence that their disease has spread, yet almost 80% of children show that their cancer has spread to distant sites.
Cause of childhood cancers are unknown and at present cannot be prevented.
Nationally, childhood cancer is 20 times more prevalent than pediatric AIDS yet pediatric AIDS receives four times the funding.
Several childhood cancers continue to have a very poor prognosis, including brain stem tumors, metastatic sarcomas and relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Every day 9 children in the US are diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Brain tumors are the leading cause of cancer death from childhood cancer.
There are more than 120 different types of brain tumors, making
effective treatment very complicated.
In general, children with Central Nervous System (CNS) cancer do not share the favorable prognosis of those with many other common pediatric neoplasms.
At this time, brain cancer research is underfunded and
THE PUBLIC REMAINS LARGELY UNAWARE
of the magnitude of this disease.
Tell people what you know about Pediatric Cancer. Maybe one day this ribbon will be as recognized as the pink ribbon and no other children will have to endure what our son and so many others have.