Strollerderby : leukemia

George Harrison Faked Beatles Signatures for Sick Kid

JeanneSager — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:36:00 GMT

How far would you go for a dying child?

The late great George Harrison apparently figured a child's happiness meant a lot more than some silly authentification process. Handwriting experts have proven Harrison forged the signatures of his fellow Beatles on a photo in the late 1960s.

The picture was for Ann Bartlett, a dying teenager. The story has just come out as Ann's father, Harry, donated the picture to a charity auction to benefit leukemia research. Even with the knowledge that John, Paul and Ringo weren't really signators, the photo, plus another personalized pic of Harrison himself that read "Ann, Hope you will be out of hospital soon, love from George Harrison, XXX" still sold for 1,300 pounds to an anonymous bidder.

Considering Harrison died of cancer himself, this story is nothing if not bittersweet. But Beatles fan or not, can you really be mad at the guy? He wanted to make a sick child happy, and there was no harm done here. In the end, it even helped a cause near and dear to the Bartletts' heart.

When it comes to making a terminally ill child happy, is it OK to cheat a little?

Image: Daily Mail

Ice, Ice Baby: Frozen Sperm Works, 22 Years Later

Kate Tuttle — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:01:00 GMT

After all the crazy stories of fertility treatments gone mad and nutty grandparents trying to extract sperm from the dead, it's refreshing to hear about the everyday miracles advanced reproductive technology can bring to parents who yearn for a child.

Chris Biblis, now 39, was just 17 when his family and doctors encouraged him to freeze sperm for future use; he was undergoing treatement for leukemia at the time, and some of the drugs used were known to cause sterility. This was in 1987, five years before the successful injection of a sperm cell into a human egg. As anyone knows who's had "the talk" with their child, pre-teen or teenager, this subject matter can cause massive embarrassment on both sides. Thank goodness, then, that Biblis's mother was courageous and humane enough to broach the subject because last month Chris and his wife had baby Stella, born to a father now cancer-free for 20 years.

The Biblises have five frozen embryos in case they want to attempt to have more kids. But for now, I'm sure they're still amazed at how fortunate they are that science -- and Stella's grandmother -- could see into a future for that teenager fighting cancer.

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Teen Declines Heart Transplant

Amy S.F. Lutz — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:01:00 GMT

At what age would you let your child make life-or-death decisions for herself? Is 13 too young?

Hannah Jones' parents, Kirsty and Andrew Jones, don't think so. They support their daughter's decision to reject a potentially life-saving heart transplant, even though doctors felt so strongly that Hannah should get the transplant that hospital authorities tried to have her removed from her parents' custody and forced to have the surgery.

Of course, there are no guarantees that the operation would save the English girl's life. She was diagnosed with leukemia when she was five years old, and chemotherapy left her with a hole in her heart. Doctors admit that the drugs Hannah would need to prevent her immune system from rejecting the new heart might also cause the leukemia to come out of remission. Plus, there's a risk that Hannah wouldn't survive the operation. So, she decided that she just wants to die at home with her family - and that's where she is now, after successfully convincing a child protection officer that her wishes should be respected.

This is such a difficult situation, and I have no idea what I would do in Kirsty and Andrew Jones' position. Would I really trust my 13-year-old to have the kind of perspective and wisdom to weigh the risks and possible benefits of the surgery? I tend to think that I would try to convince my child to try every last possible treatment before giving up, as long as the treatment had a decent shot of helping.

33 year old mom wins silver medal, saves son from leukemia

Brett Singer — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Dara Torres is an inspiration to many, competing in the Olympics at age 41, and winning. But I think the story of Oksana Chusovitina, a German gymnast, might be even more inspiring.

Here's the deal: Oksana is from Uzbekistan. Her son was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 3. There were no beds for him in her home country. Because of her gymnastics ability, she was able to move to Germany and join their team, while also getting her little boy the treatment he needed.

He seems to be doing better now, and to make the story even better, she just won a silver medal. She's also 33 years old in a sport where 22 is considered really old. Congratulations to her, and to her son.

Source/image: Detroit Free Press

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Gold (OK, Silver) Medal Girlcrush: Dana Torres

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Aussie Rower keeps his kids close

Egyptian woman gives birth to septuplets because she wanted a boy

Protesters and journalists arrested in China (video)

Whole lotta fakin' goin' on at the opening ceremony

Team more mature than coach

Jon Stewart Tackles Olympic Controversies

Olympics Opening Uses One Girl's Voice, Another Girl's Face

Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Like father like son

Conceiving a Child to Save a Life

Jen Chaney — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:02:00 GMT

At age 47, Pam Obadia is trying to conceive her second child. But that's not what makes the Vancouver mother's situation controversial.

Obadia and her husband Mike have an 8-year-old with leukemia. Currently undergoing chemotherapy and unable to find a match that will allow him to get a bone marrow transplant, the boy's prognosis is not promising. So the Obadias are hoping to give birth to another infant and use the stems cells from the newborn's umbilical cord to save their existing child's life.

It's difficult to imagine a more painful, wrenching situation for a parent. I think anyone can understand the impulse to do anything -- anything -- to save that little boy's life. But some people view this approach as something akin to genetic engineering: Creating a child primarily to save the life of another. Personally, I think it sounds a heck of a lot like a Jodi Picoult novel.

The Obadias insist they are eager to raise another child in addition to the health benefits that said baby's arrival may mean for their son. They also are spending $30,000 and traveling to Chicago to pursue invitro fertilization, then screen embryos in the hopes of finding a match.

Since they both know what it means to raise a child and are willing to go to such lengths, I can only hope that means they would happily embrace and raise the baby on his or her own terms. Because the sad fact is this: They could overcome the odds and successfully get pregnant, overcome another set of odds and find matching stem cells for their boy, then get him that transplant they've been desperately seeking. And after all that, they could still lose him in the end.

Photo: The Telegraph

New York Mamas Join Kate Winslet for a Great Cause

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:43:00 GMT

Kate Winslet is joining thousands of New York mamas to help fight the good figh t: Finding a bone marrow donor for Lisa Gershowitz Flynn, a 41-year-old mother of two young children recently diagnosed with a deadly form of Leukemia and has only weeks to live.

Winslet is using her celebrity to promote the website GiftforLisa.com and hopes her partnership with thousands of New York mamas will find a donor for Lisa.

Ms. Flynn has been diagnosed with a Acute Myelogenous Leukemia and needs to find a bone marrow donor of Eastern European descent. Go to her website to find out more..

Fewer Kids Dying From Cancer

Madeline Holler — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:27:00 GMT

There’s never been a better time to have a kid with cancer. Wait, that doesn’t sound quite right. What I’m trying to say is that deaths from childhood cancer are declining rapidly.

The chances of surviving a number of cancers that strike young children fell 20 percent from 1990 to 2004. The big fall is mostly attributed to improvements in the treatment for leukemia.

Death from cancer is the fourth-leading cause of death for children, that’s behind accidents, homicides and suicides. (Let me back up for a second ... homicides? Suicides? Those last two are freaking me out.)

Though the rate of death from cancer is decreasing for kids, the number who died in 2004 is sobering: 2,223. That’s a lot of kids in one year. (Now I’m thinking about the other causes – there were even more who died from homicide! More than 2,000 kids murdered?).

Leukemia accounted for about a quarter of those cancer deaths, and brain and other nervous system tumors accounted for another 25 percent.

Interestingly, boys had a slightly higher death rate than girls. Oh, and the article says that children in the West have a higher mortality rate than the general population.