Blog Posts
#BraveKid, #BraveHeart …11-year-old cancer survivor surprises hospital with big donation – ABC News
WATCH 11-year-old cancer survivor starts lemonade stand for pediatric cancer research A young cancer survivor ended his radiation treatment with a big donation to the Chicago hospital that helped him heal. Ryan Collins rang the celebration bell at Lurie Children's...
#BraveKid …With Pain Comes Strength – Steven’s Battle with Leukemia
Steven was diagnosed in 2017 on his 10th birthday with Leukemia and is currently in the maintenance phase of his treatment. Throughout his journey, all he has wanted to do is bring awareness and give back. You’re never too young to change the world! Steven began to...
'This maze fights cancer': Tyler Trent honored with corn maze design – Indianapolis Star
Tony and Kelly Trent signed copies of their son's book and met supporters at the Herman B. Wells Center for Pediatric Research in Indianapolis. Justin L. Mack, justin.mack@Indystar.com For the past four years, Dull's Tree Farm in Boone County has used the corn maze...
Amazing! #Bravekids …Gaming beats cancer at St. Jude!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZA6BonLc4s Why do Zac and Carson play video games at St. Jude? When they team up to play games on their Nintendo Switch, the inseparable duo are more than gamers — they are best friends. Watch to find out what gaming has done for them...
Gov. Pritzker signs bill creating Pediatric Cancer license plates – khqa.com
Governor JB Pritzker signed a new law today creating a new license plate to raise awareness and funds for pediatric cancer, the leading cause of death by disease for children. The bill was passed to honor eight-year-old Jonny Wade’s tragic fight with pediatric cancer...
#BraveKid …Cameron’s ‘No Fear’ Attitude As He Fights Leukemia
Cameron was always active in sports, so when he would get covered in bruises, his parents didn’t think much of it. But when he was frequently ill, started to have shortness of breath and fainting spells, Cameron’s parents became worried. The pediatrician assured them...
#BraveKid A First Lost Tooth
When Liam was first diagnosed, I had such a hard time with the fact that he was so young. How on earth could this little body, that has been given all the best since birth, have cancer? It wasn’t fair. It isn’t fair. How could something so awful happen to a child who...
#Bravekid, Here Comes Braylynn
If you hear a squeaking sound, it might be Braylynn headed your way! Thanks to her favorite pair of shoes, her nurses all know when she’s coming and get ready with arms wide open. The fact is, sweet Braylynn has spent way too much time in the hospital. Since her...
#BraveKid Kendall the Courageous – Leukemia Can’t Slow Her Down!
5-year-old Kendall was diagnosed with Leukemia this year. Even with her diagnosis, she is trying her best to not let cancer slow her down. She loves staying busy and playing outside! She and her family are doing their best to enjoy all that summer has to offer...
A Father’s Story
Travis Stafford is a father and childhood cancer advocate. He is committed to finding new treatments and cures by supporting CureSearch programs. In his mind, his son George’s future depends on it. Travis Stafford’s perception of fatherhood changed after his son...
6 Ways Cancer Changes Your Perspective
When your child is diagnosed with cancer, it changes the lens through which you view the world. Things look and feel different, and certain things matter far more or far less than they used to. With the help of our partner, Momcology, a national peer support and...
A Legacy of Kindness and Compassion
How 11-Year-Old Karma Maestas United a Community Karma was born a sassy, fierce and bright child. Independent and inquisitive, she was determined to get the ultimate “why” of everything. She grew to love math, science and exploring the stars and universe. She was wise...
A Genetic Mutation; A Lifetime of Cancer Screening
Adapted from Yasmin Nasrati’s speech at the the annual Cadillac Fairview Run When I was a kid, my big brother was diagnosed with colon cancer and later with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the duodenum. Sadly he passed away. He was only 12 years old. Shortly after...
Cancer Parents’ Advice to Themselves
If you could go back to the day your child was diagnosed, what advice would you give yourself, knowing what you know now? This is the question we asked a group of cancer parents through a Facebook discussion facilitated by Momcology, a national peer support and...
Childhood Neuroblastoma – Treatment
Neuroblastoma is a form of childhood cancer that begins in the early development of nerve cells. Because this rare form of cancer usually begins when the sympathetic nervous system is developing in an embryo or fetus, it occurs most often in infants and very young...
Childhood Neuroblastoma Cancer, Stages and Prognosis
Childhood Neuroblastoma: Staging When a child is diagnosed with most types of childhood cancer, including neuroblastoma, a critical part of the diagnosis is the “stage” of the disease. The stage of the disease indicates how far the disease has spread or progressed...
About Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Cancer – Detection and Diagnosis
Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) is a specific type of cancer that begins in the body’s immune system, in cells known as lymphocytes. While there are a variety of different classifications of NHL—usually based on key features such as the size, shape, and growth pattern of...
Food for Thought: Feeding Concerns in Survivorship
Long-term survivorship care involves comprehensive medical monitoring, including weight, growth, and nutrition. Survivors who received certain treatment agents are at increased risk for cardiac, bone mineral density, or metabolic problems, making adequate nutrition...
Upcoming Clinical Trial Takes Aim at Brain Tumors
Childhood brain tumors cause the most cancer-related deaths among kids and young adults ages 0–19, recently surpassing leukemia. But, a profound breakthrough is on the brink of human clinical trial which may change the future of brain tumor treatment, thanks to...
How can I Help My Grieving Friend/Family Member?
One of the things that we try to do during Bereaved Parents Awareness Month is to help the grieving parents make some sense of how they are feeling, to encourage them to give themselves permission to grieve according to their own schedule irrespective of what other...
Getting Back to Normal
Most teenagers are constantly looking for ways to stand out. Whether they use an athletic field, a stage, or the classroom, the last thing they want is to be considered average or normal. Of course, some even use defiance to attract attention. This isn’t true for...
Childhood Brain Cancer
.post-info clear-block" The human brain is the “cockpit” or “command center” for the central nervous system; it is also, despite its critical role in every aspect of human life, one of the most delicate organs in the human body. Any abnormal growth or tumour in the...
Study finds cancer rates in children are increasing
A new study at the University of Minnesota found that cancer rates in children are increasing all over the world. The study, led by Jenny Poynter, PhD, was funded in part by Children’s Cancer Research Fund. It found that incidences of leukemia, certain brain tumors,...
Hope for the Future of DIPG Treatment
In the past 40 years, scientists have made incredible progress in the world of childhood cancer research. Survival rates have risen dramatically for cancers like acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma and others. But despite these impressive advances, no...
Hearing loss weakens skills that young cancer survivors need to master reading – EurekAlert
News Release 2-May-2019 Hearing loss weakens skills that young cancer survivors need to master reading A study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital offers clues for interventions to help young cancer survivors with severe hearing loss master reading...
Cancer Sibling Shares Why Pediatric Cancer Research is Important
At the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, we know that a cancer diagnosis affects the entire family. When a child is given the news that they have cancer, siblings are impacted right alongside their brother or sister battling cancer. Ayelet’s younger sister passed...
Self-Care Tips for Cancer Caregivers
My name is Dexter. Everyone calls me Dex. I am 10 years old, and I have terminal neuroblastoma. When we found out the cancer was back, I sat do... We are proud to have the support of partners like Case Financial. This February, the organization will host its first...
How to Be the Friend a Cancer Family Needs
Colton skates in his socks across the wood floor to the fish tank and shows off “Goldy” and “Yo-Yo,” his prized goldfish. Like any 7-ye... Between gymnastics classes and riding bikes around the hospital floor, 4-year-old Brooklyn endures invasive treatments to ensure...
How One Mom Uses Her Platform to Encourage Others
Words like “maybe” and “might” can be difficult to hear because they contain no absolutes. They are wholly dependent on something going right by chance or luck. When used to describe the potential success of a medical treatment, “it might” will fall short every time....
World Cancer Day
Brings Awareness to Mesothelioma World Cancer Day, celebrated each year on February 4, is a day set aside to increase cancer awareness around the globe. Its mission is to share the belief that every person should have access to diagnosis, treatment and care,...
Childhood Cancer ~ Part I: What is Cancer?
Unfortunately children are not immune from cancer. It is always a tragedy when a child is struck by cancer, and most times the parents are totally unprepared for what dealing with their child’s illness will entail. The information contained in this series of articles...
Making the Most Impact – Treating Childhood Brain Tumors
Childhood brain tumors are the deadliest of all childhood cancers. They cause the most cancer-related deaths in children, and for patients with the most aggressive forms of this disease, there is currently no lifesaving therapy available. Some may see this as one of...
#Bravekids Life Insights from Terminally Ill Children – Tissues Required
Dr. Alastair McAlpine, a palliative pediatrician from Cape Town who works at pediatric palliative care centre PaedsPal, decided that, seeing that young children generally have plenty of wisdom to offer about the little things in life, he would see if they also have...
September Concert for Childhood Cancer
The Little Fighters Cancer Trust is going all-out for Childhood Cancer Awareness this September, as laid out in yesterday’s blogpost, and we are ending the month off in Grand Style with a Concert for Child Cancer Awareness. The concert is being organised in...
Finishing Treatment Didn’t Feel as Good as We Thought
In April 2014, doctors found a mass in Joe’s left kidney. Two months later, he was formally diagnosed with metastatic Ewing sarcoma. After he recovered from surgery to remove his kidney, we moved to chemotherapy. When chemotherapy finished, Joe had scans and we went...
New Hope for Fatal Childhood Brain Cancer (DIPG)?
Brain tumours are hard to treat. But even this is a harrowing understatement for some forms of the disease. Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is one such example. These rare brain tumours almost exclusively affect children, and they’re invariably fatal. “Almost...
Making Vacation Work for a Child with Cancer
Vacations can seem nearly impossible when your family is facing cancer, but sometimes a relaxing getaway is just what a family needs to wind down and heal together. Whether your trip consists of a flight across the country or just a drive across town, here are some...
2018 Scholarship Awardee: Lucas
Source: 2018 Scholarship Awardee: Lucas Children with cancer hope for the same things that healthy children hope for – to grow up and have a long, healthy life. That’s why PCRF is committed to improving the quality of life for those affected by pediatric cancer by...
So Anyways, Childhood Cancer
Just exactly how do we get the average person like you and the politicians and the corporations and the pharmaceutical companies who control the research funding to take creative ownership of the childhood cancer epidemic in this country? Because make no mistake about...
The Fight to Beat Childhood Cancer
An incredible amount of people still believe that cancer is an “old person’s” disease, or at least an “adult” disease and are shocked when they find out that this is not so. This is especially true in Africa, especially in the rural areas where information that we...
Search for a Cure: Fighting Children’s Cancer #Bravefight
Search for a Cure: Fighting Children’s Cancer (prahs.com) This week is the fourth annual Clinical Trials Awareness Week. This year, its mission is to raise awareness on the importance of clinical trials for infants and children. It’s a topic that’s close to the heart...
You’re invited to become a someone’s BraveHeart
June 2016 we served our 100th family. Since then we’ve passed milestones of service such as 1000 families served and 100 families served in a month. Currently, we provide services for ten families on an average day. About 300 families per month. We anticipate with the...
#BraveKid Connor, Today is What We Have #BraveMom
#BraveKid Connor was only 6 weeks old when he survived an emergency brain surgery. It was in the hours of that life-changing surgery that I learned to live in each literal second. I couldn’t think about anything other than if he was still alive. I couldn’t look...
#Goodtoknow Cancer: ‘Ultra-processed’ foods may increase risk
A large study suggests that increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods — such as soda and sugary drinks, instant noodles, packaged snacks, and some reconstituted meats — may be linked to a proportional rise in cancer risk. Be careful of what you eat;...
Palliative Care for Children with Cancer
Having a Child with Cancer in the family places tons of stress on the whole family, and dealing with the illness can be devastating in many ways. When a child is initially diagnosed with cancer, the parents generally go through various stages, which are rather akin to...
Cancer is Not a Singular Experience
Cancer is Not a Singular Experience, It’s Plural! Whether it is adult cancer or Childhood Cancer, no matter how much it feels as if we are going through it alone, nothing could be further from the truth! When an individual is diagnosed with cancer, it doesn’t only...
After Treatment – #bravekid, Living as a survivor of Childhood Brain and spinal cord cancer
Treating Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors The brain and central nervous system control every aspect of our body, from its most basic functions such as breathing to significantly more complex functions such as movement and balance. The brain even controls personality and...
The Importance of the Immune System
The immune system is the body’s defense against infectious organisms and other invaders. Through a series of steps called the immune response, the immune system attacks organisms and substances that invade body systems and cause disease. The immune system is made up...
More Hope for Children with Leukaemia
The average survival rate for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL), the most common type of children’s cancer, has gone from under 20% to 85% – unfortunately this is not the case in South Africa though ? Cutting-edge treatments are constantly being developed for even...
Causes, Risk Factors, and Prevention of Childhood Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors
What causes brain and spinal cord tumors in children? Generally speaking, “cancer” is a broad name for a condition in which cells in a particular part of the body begin to malfunction. They begin to grow, divide, and replicate more quickly than normal cells, and/or...
