It’s 1240 am…. August 15, 2021. I CANNOT SLEEP!
Yesterday we made contact with the family of a 12 year old boy named Jaylan who has colon cancer and was given about two months to live. TWO MONTHS! I can’t help imagining what he must be feeling, what his parents must feel…. It’s crazy to me.
I’m usually a glass half full kind of guy. I try to find the lessons or talking point in bad situations but tonight I feel like a half empty kind of guy.
As I think of Jaylan, I think of Paxton, Ryan, Charlie, Cody, Maddox, Callum, Sophie and all the Little HogFarmers and their families that we have grown to love. I think about their battles, their perseverance, their fears, their laughter, their sadness.
Pediatric cancer receives 4% of government funded cancer research. That’s not a typo… 4%! Our future, OUR KIDS get 4 f’ing percent!
Why is that?!? I can’t figure it out…. I know children battling cancer is an emotionally difficult subject and I believe that’s why it’s not as mainstream as other forms of cancer advocacy. Everyone seems to want to save boobs (which I’m not saying shouldn’t be) but why are we not as onboard with saving Jaylan or Ryan or Ethan?
We all witnessed our country streamline a vaccine for Covid in record time. I don’t feel like researching what we spent on that but I’m sure it was very expensive. When it maters we make it happen…. Doesn’t our future matter? These children are the future and currently they are in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.
Chemo wrecks their tiny bodies and leaves most of them with lifelong side effects but it’s pretty much their only hope to survive. It frustrates me…. I know it frustrates the moms and the dads with children battling cancer.
They deserve so much more…. They deserve to be at the forefront of research funding. They shouldn’t be planning their last 9 wishes on earth like Jaylan. But that’s where we are…. That’s what we are doing.. We cry, we share social media post as we try to make those 9 wishes a reality because it’s sad…it’s heartbreaking and all the other comments these posts normally receive. Everyday there’s five Jaylan’s, that’s 45 wishes a day, 16,425 a year. We try our best to make those 16,425 wishes a reality when really the only wish that really matters is to survive.
Would 6% help change that? Would it take 7 or 10 percent? I can’t answer that but what I do know is 4% is not working.
