I'm shaving my head to raise money for childhood cancer research! Did you know that kids' cancers are different from adult cancers? It's true. And childhood cancer research is extremely underfunded. So I decided to do something about it by raising money for cures.
My family adopted Hezekiah when he was 14 months old. A month before his 2nd birthday, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer (hepatoblastoma). Basically, he had a tumor the size of a nerf football growing on his liver and the cancer had metastasized into his lungs. We were told his chances were very poor and it was unlikely he would survive. After 6 chemotherapy cycles, and surgery to remove any remaining lung nodes, the doctors were ready to attempt to remove the main liver tumor. They placed Ki's name on the transplant list, because they really didn't think they could save his liver. But after waiting a month on the transplant list, no suitable donor livers had become available, and they decided we couldn't wait any longer. My sister Katie volunteered to donate part of her liver, so the surgery went forward. During the operation, the doctors felt inspired to approach Ki's liver from a different direction, and were able to remove the tumor and still save enough of Ki's liver (about 1/4) so he didn't need the transplant. It was a miracle. Then, after Ki recovered enough, he endured a few more cycles of chemotherapy. This was the scariest part, since we worried that he wouldn't survive the chemo. He was so skinny and weak and listless, and his kidneys stopped working for a while. But he slowly gained strength, and eventually even his hair grew back.
It's important to point out that as grateful as we are for modern medicine, chemotherapy is a toxic poison and while it saved his life, Ki will always be feeling the effects of his cancer treatment long after the cancer is gone. He is a happy and healthy 9 year old now, but he has to wear hearing aids and get constant checkups, has muscle and growth damage from the chemo, and will likely have many more complications arise as he grows older. We need to find a better way to cure childhood cancer!
We need your help! Will you make a donation? Every dollar makes a difference for the thousands of infants, children, teens, and young adults fighting childhood cancers.
