The holidays are here. For too many children, the days and nights will be spent in hospital beds while their bodies, their families and their doctors try to stave off or control leukemias, lymphomas and other cancers. Their journey is daunting. Go here to read about how some cope through Beads of Courage. The gist? Set out below is the synopsis provided by Dr. Wendy Harpham, a doctor, blogger and long-time cancer survivor who writes brief but powerful posts On Healthy Survivorship.
"Children make bead necklaces, where each bead represents one challenge they’ve overcome. So, for example, a white bead represents a chemo treatment and a red bead a transfusion. Children have beads for losing their hair, having surgery, undergoing bone-marrow biopsies, and so on."
If you have the courage, go here to see a 7 minute video of the children who earn Beads of Courage. Moved? You can click here to join the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in asking Congress to increase funding for cancer research. Today, the National Cancer Institute’s budget is $ 5 billion. That’s less than 1% of the over well over $ 600 billion the US annually spends on defense even though cancer kills far more people than do wars. In fact, cancer kills 500,000 Americans each year.
Click here to read the great science the NCI would like to invest in with an addtional $ 2 billion. What better investments are possible when children are dying, and we as a society need to greatly reduce the human and financial costs of cancer?