My brother had the privilege of being able to be treated at St. Judes by some of the nations best specialists with some of the top of the line treatments. The cost of treatment for cancer is unimaginable, but not only for the drugs they use, but if the patient is a child at least one of their parents has to stop working, which lowers the household income and some bills may be unpaid which leads to more issues the family should not have to deal with to a certain extent. With that being said the best part about St. Jude unlike hospitals and clinics ran by the government is that they don’t charge any family for any expenses so they can just focus on saving their kids life. The only way St. Jude is able to run everyday is due to the fact that 75% of all funding comes from private raised funds from donations from everyday people, the extra 25% comes from insurance, research grants, and private investments.  

Many people donate to cancer research annually, but more than likely they have no idea where there money goes. The people who donate just donate out of the kindness of their heart and just want to help people in need. When people donate it is made to believe that the money people donate is being used to help all kinds of cancer and people affected, but what isn’t broadcasted is that out of the billions of dollars donated yearly only 4% of that money goes to the funding, treatment, and care for children. Out of all the statistics for pediatric cancer this seems to be on the top of the list for one of the most sickening statistics that has surfaced. The picture attached is of my younger brother who has gone through treatment for a very rare form of pediatric cancer, which is the main reason I am so involved with this topic and like to inform others of the sickening fact that pediatric cancer is pushed to the side by the government. 

The picture I’ve attached is to give a visual on why this topic is so important to me. The picture is of my younger brother who battled a very rare form of pediatric cancer at the age of 11. The hardest part of my life so far has been the year and a half he was going through treatment; not only because of the physical toll the treatment takes on the patient’s body and what you see them go through each and every day, but the emotional toll it takes on the patient, but also the family and their support system. 

This picture is of my younger brother jake during physical therapy in between treatments at the hospital. In this picture he is also almost at his lowest weight of 64 lbs at the age of 11, also wearing a cast that he had to have switched every week for 5 months to try and correct his walking because one of the biggest physical sideaffects is that his tumor engolfed his sciatic nerve and he will never be able to walk normal again. This also had an emotional toll on him becuse he was a very athletic kid who was told he could never do sports again and he would be limited to everyday activities that normal kids his age were goign to be able to do.

Hello,

My name is Kayleigh, I started this blog to inform people about the lack of funding for research and treatment pediatric cancer receives from the government. One of the main reasons that helped me choose my blog topic is my brother and the battle he had with childhood cancer and the troubles he still has to endure today. Also I chose this because it is important for people to know where the money they donate goes to and how it is being used. I hope by the end of this I can connect with at least one person who has never thought about this topic and help to inform them on how bad of a change we need from our government.