Fight Childhood Cancer
Fight Childhood Cancer
I would like to strongly encourage you to join or renew your membership to Childhood Leukemia Association today if you have not already done so. Of your membership dues only 2% goes to administrative expresses and the remaining 98% goes to ensuring the fulfillment of our goals: to aid families with children with leukemia to be able to spend more time with their child, to allow them to be able to afford the expense to travel to and from treatment, and to offer more families the use of the Megan McDonald House.
Some of your dues goes to the Megan McDonald houses which we have set up to provide not only a comfortable place to receive treatment but most importantly to allow the family to be able to stay together while the child is receiving treatment. We are raising funds to allow us to expand upon many existing Megan McDonald Houses such as the local house here in Temple.
All the money we raise in this fundraiser will go directly to fulfilling these goals. As always we are working in conjunction with The National Marrow Donor Program to constantly add willing and able life savers to the registry.
The national marrow donor program helps people who need a life-saving marrow or blood cell transplant. Marrow or blood cell transplants benefit more than 35,000 children and adults per year.
Patients diagnosed with Leukemia, Lymphomas, and other blood cancers make up 85% of transplants facilitate by the NMDP in the United States per year with the remaining receiving transplants for a variety of immune system or inherited disorders. 34% of all transplants are for children under age 19. Only 30% of patients in need of marrow or blood cell transplants find a match in their family, the remaining 70% must rely on a match being found from volunteers, people such as me and hopefully you, who take the time to register with NMDP to save a life.
I wanted to be sure to share with you two very important things about childhood leukemia: its risk factors and its signs and symptoms.
Risk factors for childhood leukemia include: having a sibling that had or has leukemia, being Hispanic, being exposed to cigarette smoke or alcohol BEFORE or AFTER birth, having a history of preleukemia or aplastic anemia, having had past treatment of chemotherapy or radiation therapy, being exposed to ionizing radiation or certain chemicals such as benzene, and having certain genetic disorders.
Signs and symptoms of childhood leukemia range greatly from flu like symptoms to shortness of breath, frequent infection, reacquiring headache, pain below ribs, petechiae, pinpoint spots under the skin caused from bleeding, easy bleeding, easy bruising, and swollen lymph nodes.
If your child or a child you know has these symptoms I implore you to take them to the doctor as soon as possible because if they do have leukemia the sooner it is diagnosed and treatment begins the better the child’s changes to survive.
It is our great hope today that you will not only help use meet our fundraiser goal to expand upon our existing houses but that you will aid us in 100% membership retention rate, that anyone not currently a member will join today, as well as anyone who is willing and able will join the National Marrow Donor Program registry to help save a life.