Thank you for supporting me and the more than 300,000 kids worldwide who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Andrew was a happy, healthy 5 year old. He was doing everything a normal 5 year old boy would do. His birthday is in July and his 5 year check up was perfect. Fast forward to September 9 when he started to have abdominal pain and vomiting. His symptoms were that of the common GI bug, so we assumed that was the cause. Over the next week, he continued to have intermittent abdominal pain and was always holding his right side. Along with the pain, Andrew had low grade fevers as well. After picking him up from school with complaints of severe right sided pain, we went to the ER thinking he had appendicitis. We were sent home with a diagnosis of constipation. The next 3 days he continued to have intermittent pain and fevers so we took him back to the ER where they did an ultrasound...this was when we received the news that turned our lives upside down. Andrew had a mass on his kidney which was highly suspicious of Wilms Tumor. Initially, Andrew had undergone 2 grueling surgeries to remove the tumor and his right kidney and place a port for his chemotherapy. They were unable to safely remove the tumor during the 1st surgery, so he had 6 weeks of chemotherapy which shrunk the tumor enough to safely remove it. The biopsy showed that Andrew has a rare form of Wilms Tumor...DAWT (Diffuse Anaplastic Wilms Tumor), only 10% of Wilms have this histology. That meant his cancer was more difficult to treat and higher rate of recurrence. We were hopeful with newer research being done and he was treated with an aggressive regimen that had shown  favorable results for stage 4 DWAT. He underwent 42 weeks of chemotherapy and 14 fractions of radiation to his abdomen and right lung. As we were planning to celebrate his end of treatment and looking forward to the start of Kindergarten, our worlds came crashing down again…Andrew’s cancer was back. At that point, there wasn’t much research on how to further fight this beast, but we weren’t giving up. Andrew underwent another major surgery just weeks after starting kindergarten, followed by 2 more rounds of chemo…for a total of 8 different chemotherapies. Unfortunately our treatment plans kept changing when his cancer wasn’t responding to anything anymore. A grew and it grew fast. Andrew was a true superhero, one that was taken from this world far too soon. He tolerated his treatments as well as we could have ever hoped and showed bravery beyond belief. Please help us continue to fight for these kids, to make sure no other child dies from cancer. They don't deserve to go through any of this…they deserve so much better.