Holly was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma at the age of 6. She is now 7 and in remission! A woman and her daughter were sitting in the family room while Holly and I were getting ourselves acquainted with the Aflac Cancer Floor at Egelston. We were all a little shell-shocked at that point and still feeling as though we were dreaming. It was the worst nightmare ever. I said hello to the other Momma and little girl in the family room and introduced myself. She told me about her daughter’s cancer. I was shocked and relieved to hear that is was Rhabdo. It was so strange, there we were in a hospital talking as if we had met on the playground. The girls talked about Webkinz at first and then about their rhabdo. I looked at Holly’s new friend and realized that Holly would look like that soon. Bald, thin, pale and beautiful. Holly asked me later if she would in fact look like the other girl. The whole thing seemed so strange, it had not yet sunk in for us. But sitting there talking and studying them it become suddenly clear that the nightmare was becoming a reality and it was hitting us like a freight train. I learned more from that woman than I had from the doctors and the Internet combined. She told me all about the protocol, radiation, port, fevers, steroids, antibiotics, feeding tubes and the time of day I was most likely to have enough hot water to get a shower. Holly learned a lot as well. The hospital has bingo, story time, clowns, about ports and how to ride your I.V. pole. It was the other family’s last week of chemo and our first week was rapidly approaching. It gave me hope, if they got through it – surely we would too. The next 6 months were a roller coaster journey through chemo and radiation. There was a lot of throwing up, screaming, crying, and begging for the torture to stop. I would get a crushing feeling that would make my world stop completely and I needed to struggle just to take a breath. My entire body ached as a mirror image of what was going on in my mind and heart. A life that was secure suddenly seemed hopeless. The feeling of not knowing if your child will live or die is unbearable. The other woman did lose her child. My daughter is here and her baby is gone. There was a very specific life-changing moment that I realized I had become part of a world I could never fully leave. I had bonded with parents on the floor despite race or status. I fell in love with strangers’ children; we shared successes, devastation, elation and death. Another child dies, my daughter lives. It is impossible ever to leave the cancer world or return to normal. It is impossible to go back to the way we were. The only thing left to do is to just go on and try to help another lost family find their footing in those first nightmarish days.
Janice Slavin
Rhabdo Mom
Sam Robb, a rising athlete in high school was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in 2002 at the age of 15. After countless rounds of chemotherapy and major limb salvage surgery, Sam’s cancer was in remission. Consequently due to the illness, Sam would not be able to play the sports he loved, football and basketball. Sam did not give up his dreams of being an athlete, and he changed his focus to other sports that could accommodate his new physical limitations. Sam advanced to play college baseball for two years. Unexpectedly, the cancer returned, and Sam lost his battle on June 25, 2007.
CURE Childhood Cancer
Lauren Howell works at Flowery Branch High School just north of Gwinnett. Her son’s name is Liam Howell, and he was born with cancer (Congenital Fibro sarcoma) on August 1, 2007. He had a tumor 10 cm in diameter protruding off his back when he was born, and had to undergo major back surgery at 1 ½ days old to remove the tumor. Dr. Ricketts took out what he could, but the tumor had grown through the gaps of Liam’s ribs and into his chest wall (it did not metastasize). So Liam started chemo at 2 weeks of age and had 9 rounds of chemo. At 9 months old, Liam went into remission, and has remained in remission for 17 months now. He is now entering into the realm of long-term side effects. He does not appear to have many, but one that he does have for sure is a severe case of scoliosis from where the tumor displaced his spine in the womb. He will be getting growing rods in his back to correct this, and hopefully by age 12, he will be “normal.”
CURE in honor of Liam and another student who battled cancer as well. Both high schools have been touched by pediatric cancer—Liam represents Flowery Branch, and Brian Ernst (recently in remission from Ewing’s Sarcoma) represents West Hall. The schools are friendly rivals, and decided to use that rivalry to raise some money. They had t-shirts made for Flowery Branch’s Homecoming (against West Hall) in each school’s respective colors. The day and night of the game, everyone who bought a shirt wore it to school and to the game. There was a sea of people wearing red and blue with gold ribbons on the shirts in support of pediatric cancer research. The local paper came out and took some pictures of students in the shirts and of Brian and Liam. Together the schools raised $2,000.00 to donate to CURE.
In March 2001, when he was 10-years-old, Max Levine came home from school complaining of hip pain. We thought it was growing pains. His pediatricians thought it was loose joints. And the rheumatologists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) thought it might be Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Jenny Wilkins, the mother of Catie Wilkins, remembers her daugthers last holidays as she battled cancer. “Catie’s favorite tradition at Christmas time was when her elf came to visit”, says Jenny Wilkins. The family decided to share that tradition with other families facing the same struggles as their little girl. Watch the video to see the full story on “Elves From Catie” and how the program is touching the lives of others.
Mustaches for Kids is an annual Mustache-growing fundraiser that is held in cities throughout the United States and Canada.
who, collectively, have raised over $150,000 for children’s charities. The Atlanta chapter of Mustaches for Kids has chosen to raise money for 
