I was diagnosed with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a childhood cancer, at age 13. This is a very aggressive soft tissue cancer that forms in the muscles and can spread throughout the whole body.  I was diagnosed as stage 4 and had to go through 54 weeks of chemotherapy and radiation. since I was diagnosed in 2014 I have relapsed 4 times, gone through surgery, over 130 radiation treatments, 114 weeks of chemotherapy and countless side effects.

The chemotherapy given to children is the same drugs my 56 year old mom would have gotten at my age. A new drug hasn’t been created for childhood cancer in over 70 years. with that said, 43 children get diagnosed everyday and that’s only in the USA. It’s estimated that over 300,000 kids get diagnosed with this disease every year worldwide. Globally, cancer has stolen 11.5 million years of healthy life away from children in 2017. This total could be lower, if all children received healthier drugs and new treatment options. Only 4% of the billions of dollars the government spends annually on cancer research is directed towards treating childhood cancer. That means 1 cent of every dollar given to the American cancer society goes to children’s cancer. 

I have made so many close friends over my years of fighting cancer and I have lost many of them. I am also starting to run out of treatment options as I keep relapsing. Please sign this petition to get more funding towards this horrible disease. Every kid deserves a chance.