On November 5th my wife and I were told words that are burned into my heart "the pathology is back and unfortunately there was no infection present".....
This meant my 3 year old son Jake had a rare and aggressive type of bone cancer called Ewing's Sarcoma.
He has had 6 chemo cycles so far, and 2 weeks ago had 75% of his left tibia removed and replaced with a cadaver bone.
He has a 50% chance of seeing his 13th birthday....and a 20% chance of living a normal life.
I'm not asking you to help my son....or my family. I am asking you to help further research for all types of pediatric cancers. The funding is horribly inadequate, as my son is treated with a 5 drug cocktail, each of which is 30+ years old.
As a matter of fact in the past 20 years there has only been ONE NEW DRUG for any pediatric cancer approved by the FDA.
JUST ONE!!!!...?
We have new iphones every 9 minutes....and only one new drug in 20 years to treat ANY of the 12 families of pediatric cancers?
Funding....or the extreme lack there of.
If you give $100 to Relay for Life (American Cancer Society)...only $.70 goes to pediatric research....the National Cancer Institute only spends an average of 3% of its budget on any pediatric cancer. More than 50% go to breast and prostate alone.
I am running a half marathon Sunday for the Rally Foundation, and all money raised goes specifically to pediatric cancer research. This may not help my son, but it may help save another child. The treatments are barbaric...and it happens much more often than you may think.
46 children PER DAY are diagnosed.....7 of them will die. That's a child ever 30 minutes....parents hear the 4 words "your child has cancer" every half hour.
Please help me make a difference. Any amount will help...$1...$5.
If you can't...please share my fundraising page on other social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc). See if your league will pass around a bucket one night....every little bit helps.
Thank you!
Randy Russell
https://rallyfoundation.org/donate/athlete/27/team_jake
