Firstly, an update on Josh for you all before we share other family news. Over the past twelve months his tumour has stabilised, although this wasn't the aim and hope of the proton therapy treatment, we are all grateful that it hasn't continued to grow!
Unfortunately, the tumour is still causing lots of other problems and Josh is likely to need further surgery to reduce pain levels in his legs and fit a catheter.
At the moment we don't have any dates / time scale for this as we are still awaiting the many doctors involved in Josh's care to make decisions!
Sadly, the second piece of family news is that Lonnie has recently been diagnosed with cancer. So there are now two members of our little family fighting cancer! Thankfully Lonnie has been diagnosed with a very treatable type of cancer and has already responded really well to surgery. He is now preparing to undergo chemotherapy and then hopefully he will have beaten this horrible disease! At least he has Josh as a good inspiration of how to get through cancer treatment!
You can support Lonnie by donating to his sponsored head shave here: http://www.justgiving.com/Lonnie-Brown
As I write this I've been reflecting on the fact that it is now 1st October, you may be wondering what the significance of it no longer being September is. Simply it's because September was childhood cancer awareness month. One of my friends on facebook recently complained about the frequency of my posts about childhood cancer, and actually removed me as a friend over it! The actual truth of it is, I too am fed up of all of this talk about childhood cancer, but we can't hide away and pretend it doesn't happen because it's uncomfortable, instead we need to join together and beat it!
Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease amongst children. This is because childhood cancer remains in the shadows, we don't talk about it and I bet many of you completely missed the fact that September was awareness month! I bet far more of you are aware that October is breast cancer awareness month, and yet 85% of all women diagnosed will survive! A much better outlook than childhood cancers. Everywhere you look products and buildings are turned pink and everyone is wearing a pink ribbon, although I am glad that women are being supported I do feel uncomfortable as I am not sure why this is more important than childhood cancers.
Currently very little funding is put into researching childhood cancers, this needs to change if we have any hope of achieving an 85% survival rate such as breast cancer patients. There is a campaign that has been started by a group of parents to try and boost the awareness of childhood cancer awareness month, you can view this here:http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/54976
Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease amongst children. This is because childhood cancer remains in the shadows, we don't talk about it and I bet many of you completely missed the fact that September was awareness month! I bet far more of you are aware that October is breast cancer awareness month, and yet 85% of all women diagnosed will survive! A much better outlook than childhood cancers. Everywhere you look products and buildings are turned pink and everyone is wearing a pink ribbon, although I am glad that women are being supported I do feel uncomfortable as I am not sure why this is more important than childhood cancers.
Currently very little funding is put into researching childhood cancers, this needs to change if we have any hope of achieving an 85% survival rate such as breast cancer patients. There is a campaign that has been started by a group of parents to try and boost the awareness of childhood cancer awareness month, you can view this here:http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/54976
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