SQUIRREL

I come to you with a special prayer request for Katie Wagner. I’d be so happy for you to cover her in prayer and show her some love on her FB page at Wagner Family Support.  Katie is 17 and is fighting Rhabdomyosarcoma. She was actually in remission but last month her cancer returned.  She begins the fight again.  This makes me sad.  Do you know that most childhood cancer survivors will never really be survivors? Unfortunately, the drugs that are used to heal, don’t.  Many of these kids will go into short-term remission only to have their cancer return or new ones hit them as hard or harder because the drugs being used are so toxic.  The “survival” rate is a 5 year rate.  Most of these kids will develop a repeat of their original cancer or a different, secondary cancer within that time period, which makes every scan a jumbled mess of nerves and unknowns. There are 13,500 new pediatric cancer cases a year which is not seen as an “epidemic” by our government. (That number is new cases – doesn’t include relapse cases – so that number isn’t truly accurate for them to base their reasoning).  And although they say otherwise, the American Cancer Society is not interested in funding better treatments and safer, less toxic drugs for childhood cancer.   I know this is repeat information but it bears repeating… the ACS only gives 4% a year to pediatric cancer.  They give NOTHING to Neuroblastoma… ZERO!  (If you ever want to give to pediatric cancer, the ACS is not your place, find a foundation that truly funds childhood cancer research.)  The drugs being used on our kids are archaic!  They were developed 30-40 years ago but it’s all we have!  BUT things are going to change soon.  Within the next 10-15 years, childhood cancer will become an “epidemic” as far as our government’s standards. But we won’t have kept up and there will be such loss, more than we see even now. And those of you that know me well can all yell “SQUIRREL!”  I’m heading off on a tangent now that is unrelated to Katie or Jake or most current kid cancer patients.  Here goes…  Sucralose!  It’s in EVERYTHING!  IT”S HORRIBLE!  Most of the cancers that effect our children are absolute random mutation.  There is no rhyme or reason.  But that’s going to change.  Very soon, you are going to see more and more childhood cancer cases that can be traced.  Finally, it will be called an epidemic.  But it will be different than our current cancers because like many of the adult cancers, it will be based on toxin build up.  Sucralose is in EVERYTHING our kids are ingesting.  You have to look hard to find things WITHOUT it.  It’s in your kid’s drinks, fruit snacks, yogurt, milk products, cereals, breads, cookies, sodas, everything. Real sugar is OK, our body metoabolizes it.  It’s not bad, yet it’s being replaced by this chemical that hasn’t even been studied in humans long enough to know it’s effects. I’m harping on this because it truly is in EVERYTHING!  I ask you to spend a little time researching it and come up with your own conclusions. I find it to be a very scary product. It’s just a matter of time until we know exactly what the body does with it, but sadly, the damage will be done.  I don’t usually use this blog to rant but this is something that I truly believe is a future monster in the making… one that can be easily thwarted. To give you an idea… the other day Henry went shopping with me. Everything that he put in the cart for Jake to try and put some meat on his bones had SUCRALOSE.  All of it.  He didn’t believe me at first so he started reading the labels too.  Surprise!  He got a real quick education.  READ LABELS!  Don’t buy it! It’s not worth the chance. What Jake faces everyday should not be experienced by any other child. Knowing there will be children that will one day have cancer by something other than an unlucky, statistically, random mutation makes me sad and SO ANGRY. OK, rant over!  On a sidenote… Jake woke up at 3AM throwing up like crazy.  No fever but very weepy and off today.  We head into TCH tomorrow.  We’re scheduled to head in for six days of chemotherapy if he makes counts. Last Thursday his ANC and hemoglobin were ready for chemo but his platelets were still low.  He needs to be at 75K to hook up and he was only at 36K. We’ll know manana. In the meantime, I’m packing to be gone for the week even though I have a feeling we’ll come home tomorrow and have to try again later in the week. He’s had a good, happy week with swimming and playing.  Oh, he’s also still harboring that cough from December.  It’s never really gone away but it comes and goes in it’s severity.  Thurday there was a little noise in the lower lobes of his lungs again so we’ll be watching that Monday.  If it’s still there or worse, we’ll have to do a chest scan before entering chemo.  For now, he’s cuddled up with his blankie on the sofa watching Wreck It Ralph.  Back to my moment of squirrel… thank you for humoring me and reading this, I hope the information is helpful in some way and doesn’t discourage you from coming back!  Have a blessed Sunday!