When I was 11 years old, I was diagnosed with a muscle tumor. I received chemotherapy for nine months and radiation in multiple body areas for an additional 12 weeks. At the end of my treatment, my cancer had completely left my body and I was cancer-free. Unfortunately, my cancer returned 14 months later. I did chemotherapy again for nine months and then six weeks of radiation. This second treatment worked but only to suppress the cancer. I finished the treatment once again, and now, for a third time, the cancer has returned. There is no treatment for my cancer at this point, so my next hope is a clinical trial. To hear a doctor tell you they don’t have that magic pill to cure your cancer is the most painful information you can receive. I am hopeful that one day, not far from today, a child or teen like me doesn’t have to hear a doctor tell them that they don’t have a cure for them.

There are so many other kids who are in my shoes hoping that this clinical trial will help us. I want people to know that kids get cancer too, and that we are worth more than 4%. When the government provides funding for cancer research, only 4% of that money goes towards pediatric cancer. Kids who are just four years old receive chemotherapy that is used on adults because there is not enough money directed to pediatric cancer for less-harmful drugs to be created. Raising money to award to researchers is one of the best ways to help them. There are many researchers out there who have different treatment ideas, but for most researchers that’s all it is, an idea. In order for them to actually do something, they need money to fund it. Imagine if we fund one researcher’s idea and their idea actually works! Everyone who helped raise the money would save so many young lives, including mine! I want to give kids and their parents hope to let them know that there are people who care and want to help.
I want to help them because I know what it’s like to be in their shoes and feel like all hope is lost. I want to help kids like me live a cancer-free life.