September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Join us today, September 15, 2009 as CURE Childhood Cancer honors CURE Kid Chandler Booth. Join our fight as CURE’s Kids Conquer Cancer One Day at a Time! Donate to Chandler’s Fund.
Chandler Booth’s Story:
July 17 is a significant day in the Booth Family because it was on this day in 2003 that the diagnosis of neuroblastoma stage IV was confirmed by biopsy for our 14 month old son, Chandler. We’d known something was wrong for a few weeks prior, but this day all our hopes for another diagnosis were dashed. Our baby had widespread cancer and he was in pain and literally dying right before our eyes.
We allowed Chandler to participate in a clinical trial for the treatment of high risk neuroblastoma, as this was the most current treatment available for his specific disease and stage. This trial was just the doctors’ best guess at beating our son’s cancer, they offered no guarantees. It involved five rounds of significant chemotherapy, tumor removal surgery and two stem cell transplants which were a lethal dose of chemotherapy drugs and a life-saving rescue of stem cells. Once the transplants were done, he had to be sedated and radiated for several weeks. Throughout the nine months of treatment, we wondered which would kill him first, the treatment or the cancer. By the end of the radiation, he was only a month shy of being two years old! He’d done all this in diapers!
The treatment required our family to be separated. Mom was with Chandler at the hospital and Dad was at home four hours away working and caring for our daughter Betsy for her whole second grade year. Lengthy treatments are expensive and they test a family’s will; again with no guarantee the outcome will be successful.
Chandler is now seven years old. He has no memory of the nauseating chemo, the bone marrow needles, the mouth sores, the surgeries and the accompanying pain, or any of the life-saving treatments. However, we remember it all too well. Just because he has been off treatment for five years, we are not “out of the woods.” We try not to live in fear of relapse but it happens all too often with neuroblastoma. Cancer just should not happen to innocent children in the dawn of their lives. It is our hope that in our lifetime a CURE, a guarantee, can be offered to parents. Researchers say they are on the cusp of being able to offer a guarantee of a cure with enough funds. We have watched too many pediatric cancer patients die in treatment or after the doctors have tried their best. It is maddening to know that a cure is so close and all it takes is enough money to achieve this. Please consider giving to CURE Childhood Cancer to make this happen.
About September & CURE’S Kids Conquer Cancer One Day at a Time:
September is recognized as National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. This September, CURE Childhood Cancer has committed to raising awareness and raising money to help find a cure for childhood cancer in our lifetime and put an end to this terrible disease through a special program CURE’s Kids Conquer Cancer One Day at a Time!
Please help us in our goal of raising $30,000 in the month of September while honoring special CURE kids each day of the month who have been affected by childhood cancer.
For more information, please click here.
About CURE Childhood Cancer:
Founded in 1975, CURE Childhood Cancer is dedicated to conquering childhood cancer through research, education and support of patients and their families. Since its establishment as a grass-roots organization, CURE has focused its efforts on improving the care, quality of life, and survival rate of children with cancer.
The founders, parents and a dedicated pediatric oncologist, joined forces to support laboratory research that would translate into immediate care for children with cancer.
Since that time, CURE has raised millions of dollars to fund cutting edge research at the Aflac Cancer Center Blood Disorders Service at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine.
Through innovative programming, CURE also provides support for stricken families, providing them comfort and support during their time of devastating need.
Donate to Chandler’s Fund
Visit us online at www.curechildhoodcancer.org for more information.
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