If you want to make this country great, imagine the strength of a nation that has fought its children and Know They went to.
Last month, my son reached two years in a remission of a rare malignant cancer that was almost his eye and life. He is alive, well and has a 20/20 vision due to a pioneering treatment Pioneer by the National Institutes of Health ResearchersAmong other things, and funded Giving Trump administration ban and Threat. If the president continues in this session, the children who were diagnosed during this administration and then will be unnecessarily worse than those who came before.
My son Jack was diagnosed in 2022 with Retinal tumorMalignant childhood cancer in the central nervous system that arises and grows in the eye. If left without treatment, it usually migrates through the optic nerve to the brain, eventually spread and takes the life of the child.
Since cancer usually attacks children under the age of three, its victims are often unable to report symptoms of a block that prevents their vision until it is too late to treat procedures that can save the eye. This is when it is necessary to remove the eye -.
This is why pediatricians have developed a record examination of the retinal tumor starting from birth. This preventive care has now enabled medical professionals to find and treat most of the cases without losing vision or life. Because of these and other developments, the retinal tumor has a very high survival rate in America in the twenty -first century.
Jack was one of the very few diagnoses documented with the retinal tumor after the age of eight. The oncology doctor suggested that his tumor was hiding in a dark corner of the retina for years, from his vision and his vision. Other doctors believed that he was “self -facilitated” or presented late and quickly slept. We only discovered this because it exploded from the effect of flipping in the pool of the neighborhood, which led to the removal of cancer cells in a constellation of toxins that float inside the eyeball that is still still, and visible to Jack as sites that did not disappear.
It took weeks for doctors to reduce the diagnosis. When we got out of this appointment on a day he was very windy, I had to stick to my door, put Jack in the car, turned the radio for him, closed the passenger door and walked about 30 feet to scream in the parking lot. “My child!” You are crying over the phone to my mother.
It was an advanced stage tumor, complicated by the launch of cancer cells inside his eye. They can now attach and grow anywhere inside – including the optic nerve, with his direct contact with his mind – if we do not act quickly. We may just have it a few days before it is too late.
“We can remove his eye,” our oncologist’s offer at first, “and even it may not be enough.”
Medical researchers from universities and national health institutes near the headquarters of the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services in Washington.
(John McDonnell / Associated Press)
Then he explained that we can try to save his eye with a very advanced procedure called The chemotherapy inside the arteriesOr IAC. It involves the arrangement of catheter through the thigh artery, behind the heart through the carotid artery and to the skull. An interventional radiologist, MRI, calls the chemotherapy factor directly in the artery that nourishes the retina. This allows doctors to connect a more aggressive drug, targeting sick cells, and reduce the damage to healthy colors.
Our oncology doctor has explained that IAC is still a very new technology, but it has an extraordinary promise whose benefits outperformed Jack.
My son has undergone tours of chemotherapy inside the arteries and seven rounds of Inevitreal chemotherapy, where the drug is injected directly into the eye. He went under anesthesia 13 times in six months, and asks for monthly breathing treatments that made him spit gray foam, lost most of the eyebrow and all eyelashes around the affected eye. Its medications included ketamine, propofol, hydromorone, milfallan, fentanel, Topotkan, pantamidine, alboterol, Prostolone and Lullosterone. At some point, he needed ibenifrin because he almost supervised heart attack. Near the end of his treatment, he received cooling treatment to kill the base of the tumor and wake up from surgery to a lot of pain that he spent his teeth to the point of one break.
At each turn, my family was reminded with our distinction – living in a country that was scientific advanced enough to develop these miracle treatments, to live in the city of Denver with such good hospitals, to obtain good health insurance through my husband’s employer. If we lived without this access to care, in a country that lacks our resources or only 15 years ago, our story had ended differently. Instead, nine months after its diagnosis, thanks to the advanced research, our country’s social, academic and financial support, my son’s cancer was in remission.
My family recently attended a gathering with the other survivors of the retinal tumor, from young children to adults who invaded the disease decades ago. When every survivor entered the conference, it became clear that this was primarily blindness: the price of survival was generally the loss of sight and eyes. Some older survivors had facial abnormalities of radiation or guidance. Some had cane or family members to guide them. When the group told us that the body of Jack, a vision and a dream to become a pilot who is still healthy, many have rocked the fear that the flag has been advanced so far.
But now the Trump administration’s lack of sympathy for children and other families who face such horrific diagnoses threatens. Continuous research on chemotherapy within the arteries and other treatments at Colorado University Anshotz Medical DecisiveWhere Jack was dealt with, the price is paid by the programs in the crossing in the administration. A university spokeswoman told Chalkbeat Colorado. “The low research capacity means fewer scientific discoveries, loss of jobs and delay in developments on treatments and treatments that can improve – and save life.”
I wonder if the hospital will be able to continue providing pioneering treatments against Jack repeatedly. Will the personnel newly have the same access to the care we have done? What is the greatness that can be celebrated when the mother is afraid to lose her child’s remedy for life rescue?
My son’s recovery was a direct result of the greatness of our country and its former leaders, who had insight to follow up on progress and excellence in science and refused to accept losers without fighting. Because of this, I think my son will one day fly. I can only hope that the next child who faces a severe disease will have the same opportunity.
Dina Kobland is a writer and teacher in Colorado.