Tuesday, March 20

This is Hannah and her friend Nicholas. Nicholas is our next door neighbor here. He has childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (also called ALL). ALL is a blood and bone marrow cancer, the most common form of leukemia in children and the most common kind of childhood cancer. He does not undergo radiation right now, just the chemotherapy, and will for quite a while. He is such a sweetheart, just a very kindhearted little boy. He can't walk due to the effects of the chemotherapy, but he is great in his wheelchair and Hannah gets motivation from watching him move around the hallways.

Other than leukemia or lymphoma, central nervous system (brain and spinal tumors) are the second most common type of cancer in children. Each year, only 2200 children in the United States are found to have a brain tumor. About 3 children out of every 100,000 children will have a brain tumor. Medulloblastoma, which is what Hannah has, is one type of central nervous system (brain) tumor, a highly malignant and fast growing tumor. Medulloblastomoa constitutes 15-20% of all childhood brain tumors, making it the most common type of malignant brain cancer found in children. There are a lot of factors that are considered when determining survival rate, and based on Hannah's tumor and risk factors, the survival rate is 70-80%.

I think I can quote these statistics in my sleep now. Sometimes they just sound horrible, but you want to know them anyway.

XO
Kim