Search results matching tags 'Cancer' and 'childhood cancer'

8-Year-Old Has Ovarian Cancer

JeanneSager — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:33:00 GMT

As if we weren't worried enough about childhood leukemias and pediatric neuroblastomas.

A rash of recent news of young kids with traditionally adult cancers makes it that much scarier to be a parent these days. And here's another one!

An eight-year-old girl in England has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer after complaining of abdominal pain to her parents that they thought might be appendicitis. She was soon diagnosed as one of the youngest children in Britain to have the disease (there were a few under the age of four in 2005). The little girl's left ovary had to be removed in full, and she's in the midst of chemotherapy.

Ovarian cancer in kids isn't unheard of. It's considered "one of the most frustrating of all gynecologic diseases," according to experts, but the good news is more than half of ovarian tumors in kids turn out to be benign (so even if this crops up, you don't have to panic . . . at least not until the doctors tell you to start panicking). Still, doctors say pediatricians need to be aware this COULD be the cause of adominal pain or endocrine symptoms in kids - so don't feel ashamed of suggesting it.

Beond the threat of death (the biggest concern with any cancer), pediatric ovarian cancer can affect a child's development as she hits to teenage years when her body would normally begin menstruating. In Sophie fry's case, there's good news - with one ovary left, doctors expect she'll not only make a full recovery but menstruate normally and even have the potential of having kids.

Image: Telegraph

Is Your Kid a Victim of Mr. Bubble Down Under?

When a Mother Goes Bald

JeanneSager — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:01:00 GMT

I've spent the last month and a half knocking down doors trying to convince a lot of broke people to give me money so I could shave my head.

Even in a bad economy, I hit my small goal of $1,000 raised for the St. Baldrick's Foundation - so you can all laugh at my very bald head.

Ready for it?

Yes, that's me, bald. My head got stuck on my pillow Saturday night, and I can officially clean out from under my nails just by rubbing my fingers across my scalp, but it was worth it.

I'm a hero for kids with cancer. Everyone who shaved their heads during this St. Baldrick's season is a hero. So is everyone who pulled out their wallets and gave - whether it was $1 or $1,00.

In many ways, the smaller amounts meant all that much more - because they came from people I knew were struggling this year. As one fellow shavee told me at a firehouse last week where twenty firemen came together like a true band of brothers and shaved their heads - "people still believe in a good cause."

I walked down the line among men who get out of bed in the middle of the night to rush out in their turnout gear and run into burning buildings, men who are used to ragging on the reporter just because they can, and they were shy, quiet. "Anything for the kids," they admitted. I nodded. "No, anything," one man said, looking me straight in the eye.

Most of us will do anything for their kids. But kids overall? I have to shave my head every year - not because my daughter has cancer (thank goodness) - but because I can't look a sick child in the eyes and not see my daughter standing there. I can't hear the story of a child stricken with a leptomenengial tumor at three and not think, Oh my God, my daughter is only three. I can't turn off the mother in me when I hear about children's cancer.

There are hundreds of other charities - worthy charities - but I'm a parent. So I pick this one. And every year, for as long as I'm still growing hair, I'll give it up, hoping that some day, one day, that $2, $25, $100 I talked out of someone, will change another parent's world.

Want to donate on someone's head? Check out the St. Baldrick's Foundation website and see if anyone you know shaved their head this year.

Religious Parents Fight to Keep Braindead Boy On Life Support

JeanneSager — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:34:00 GMT

Eluzar and Miriam Brody are facing perhaps the hardest situation any parent can encounter. Their son, Motl, had brain cancer. Now doctors say the twelve-year-old is brain dead, and they've recommended removing the boy from life support. But his heart, beating with the help of intravenous drugs, has kept the Orthodox Jews from saying yes.

The Brody's religion interprets a beating heart and functioning lungs (currently powered by a ventilator) as signs of life. According to their attorney, "his family has a religious obligation to secure all necessary and appropriate medical treatment to keep him alive." The issue came this week, when doctors at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. determined the boy's condition had deteriorated beyond that of a persistant vegitative state. A story at MSNBC breaks down his condition, explaining Motl Brody's brain has actually begun to decompose.

Setting religion aside, this isn't something I'd expect any parent to decide easily. The hospital's determination came Wednesday. The first news story hit a day later.

What makes this story even more upsetting is the fact that Children's National offered to move, as they called it, Motl's "earthly remains" (honestly, as a parent, couldn't they have come up with a more sympathetic way of putting it?). But no hospital closer to the Brody's Brooklyn, New York home has agreed to take in a brain-dead child. They've agreed to give the case until this Wednesday out of respect for the family's religious beliefs.

How long should a family get to make this kind of decision - religion or no religion?

Image: Children's Medical Center

Search results matching tags 'Cancer' and 'childhood cancer'

8-Year-Old Has Ovarian Cancer

Kids are Suffering in Emergency Rooms Nationwide

Iowa Mulling Same Sex Birth Certificates?

10-Year-Old Battles Breast Cancer

When a Mother Goes Bald

Spurred to Action by Natasha Richardson's Death, Parents Save Girl

Update: Little Boy Dies of Untreated Cancer

Motherless Baby Breastfed By Six Women Each Day

Religious Parents Fight to Keep Braindead Boy On Life Support