9/14/10 - Notice Anything Different?

That's right, we are sporting gold all month for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. I wanted to share some facts about childhood cancer.

• Around 12,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in the US. Around 200,000 children are diagnosed each year worldwide.
• One in every 330 Americans develops cancer before the age of twenty.
• On the average, 36 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer everyday in the United States.
• On the average, one in every four elementary schools has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are current or former cancer patients.
• Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15 in the United States.
• Childhood cancers affect more potential patient-years of life than any other cancer except breast and lung cancer.
• The causes of most childhood cancers are unknown. At present, childhood cancer cannot be prevented.
• Childhood cancer occurs regularly, randomly and spares no ethnic group, socioeconomic class, or geographic region. In the United States, the incidence of cancer among adolescents and young adults is increasing at a greater rate than any other age group, except those over 65 years.
• Despite these facts, childhood cancer research is vastly and consistently underfunded.

As I watch Brinley this round of chemo battle things out inside her body I am faced, once again, with a helpless feeling, with no way to take away her pain and sickness. I believe in the advancement of medicine, and I believe God gave us the tools to figure this out. Let's get there! As quickly as possible. What will the day be like that we can say each child with cancer will live! Will be able to have children, a family. Will have a healthy, strong body without disabilities from the chemo. They deserve that. Brinley is sleeping in my arms as I type because she is too tired to play. She couldn't decided if she wanted to go to her friends house, or pre-school, or sunday school because she is too tired and sick. No child should have to do this. It isn't right.

We can't wait for our Alex's Lemonade Stand. We are hoping to have a good turnout, you just never know. As we have planned this event, I have realized that there are people who truly care, and people who just don't. It is interesting to watch from one person to the next. We have had people call us and ask what they can do to help spread the word when they hear about it. Or making a donation without batting an eye. And we have had people look at us like we are trying to sell them a Kirby vacuum. I'm not sure what the difference is, why one person is so annoyed to have to listen to us talk about childhood cancer, and the next person is filled with compassion for these kids. I'm sure anyone who has tried to advocate for a group of people can relate. We have had to focus on the good people out there so we don't get too discouraged, because they are out there.

I remember last year, the man who lingered around our stand for a while, then finally wrote out a check for $1. None of us will forget that donation. We all wondered what it took for him to give us that money, and what was going through his head as he debated whether he would contribute or not. Anyhow, we have had some pretty amazing experiences and are ready to bring this cause to the community!

Remember if you can't make it you can still donate online. Click on the sidebar and it will take you to our donation page. Or if you aren't much for making online donations, you can now text to donate. It is the coolest thing, you just text "Lemonade E67204", to 85944 and it will be an automatic $10 donation. Text donations are billed directly to your cell phone provider and then paid to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. It will show up in our stand total, but we won't know where it came from, so let us know so we can thank you!