Maintenance? Not a lot of people are familiar with what maintenance is. It’s the longest stage of treatment for leukemia that comes after several months of intense chemotherapy. Every month you go in to clinic for a check-up, and some months you have a spinal tap. There are a lot of pills too. Here’s the catch though, if you have a fever you have to go to the ER to get checked for an infection.
For me, maintenance is bittersweet. You have a month of freedom uninterrupted by doctors’ appointments or hospital visits (if you’re lucky). When that month ends, it feels as if it went by so fast, and then reality comes back to remind you you’re not done with treatment yet.
For most NFL players, making the practice squad instead of the 53-man roster is a huge letdown. But for Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Devon Still, it was a sign of loyalty.
Smith’s four-year-old daughter is battling pediatric cancer and by being on the Bengals’ practice squad, Still still has health insurance.
This disease literally turned my world upside down in a matter of a day and continues to affect every… http://t.co/2h9l4nmtxm
Recently, a group of researchers under Wyndham Wilson and Kieron Dunleavy, both from NCI, carried out a new study which eliminates the need of radiation therapy while treating Primary Mediastinal B-cell Lymphoma, which is a rare type of cancer.
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Presently, the results from this study have been quite encouraging and there is now reason to believe that it may be possible to treat cancer more effectively without making use of radiation in the near future.
Research is an important aspect for finding ways to combat cancer. Many events that are conducted in places like Chicago and Mackinaw in Illinois by Lungevity to fund research and help find better cure.
Although pediatric cancer research is making great strides, a funding shortage threatens further progress in this lifesaving field.
In one groundbreaking trial, researchers injected a young college student’s brain tumor with a form of the polio virus. Because she had previously received the polio vaccine, the girl’s body began to fight the tumor. Once the size of a lime, it’s now the size of a pea.
“When you hear a story like that, it sends chills up your spine,” said Jay Scott, co-executive director of Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.
But scientific breakthroughs can occur only if medical research receives sufficient funding
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Next month, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) is teaming up with Northwestern Mutual to host its second Young Investigators Summit and inspire a new generation of pediatric cancer researchers to find treatments and cures in this vastly underfunded field.
“Anybody who can do the math can figure out that kids are getting shortchanged,” said Scott, who believes that cures for most kids can be found within five to ten years.
Nine in ten pediatric cancer researchers say lack of funding is the biggest obstacle to finding a cure,according to a survey by Northwestern Mutual. And nearly a fifth of researchers are considering leaving the field, primarily because of a lack of funds.
“That’s a real eye-opener,” said Scott. “We don’t want to lose a whole generation of potential cancer researchers.”
Children fighting cancer won a big battle Tuesday in getting Times Square and other New York City landmarks to glimmer in gold, the color symbolizing the fight against childhood cancers.
Dozens of children, some in remission and some still fighting cancer, showed up to see the electronic billboards change over from advertisements to a message reading: “A day of yellow and gold to fight childhood cancer.”
They remained lit in the golden message for one hour.
Diagnosed with leukemia when she was 9, Heidi Hayes now speaks on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society
“The people I’ve met, the stories I’ve heard, have made me who I am today. I give back to the cancer world because I owe it my life. I would feel selfish if I didn’t give back to such a beautiful and strong community.”
After being diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 14, Laruen Bedesky has been fighting the disease as a patient for most of her teen years. It wasn’t until this summer that Bedesky got to fight cancer on an entirely new front — by working in a cancer research lab.
As an intern at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, Bedesky was able to run experiments and explore potential new cancer treatments.
Under the direction of cancer researcher Dr. Dean Lee, Bedesky, she was able to research the same kind of tumor — a type of brain cancer called neuroblastoma, she was diagnosed with in 2012.
