Grace: A Child's Intimate Journey Through Cancer and Recovery
Dear Oprah,
Persistent in my mission, I write to you again today with great hope you will make the choice to do a show on childhood cancer. Childhood cancer is grossly overlooked and underfunded; our society is virtually clueless about childhood cancer. Our knowledge beyond, “Oh yeah, it’s the bald kids and St. Jude’s,” is glaringly absent. What this group of over 52,000 people is asking you to do is to produce a show that will educate your enormous audience about childhood cancer.
It seems to me that those who are doing the most to stop childhood cancer are the people who have been torn, beaten and ravaged by it. They know the seriousness… when children are diagnosed, 80% have advanced stages of the disease, compared to 20% in adults. Late effects from harsh cancer treatments are common, causing lifelong health problems for over 40% of childhood cancer survivors. Some types of childhood cancer have a 0% survival rate.
We, as a society, have far, far, to go in implementing a healthcare system that will detect cancer earlier in children. There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon– with the announcement last week about Johnson & Johnson developing a new blood test that they say can detect cancer cells. What a giant step forward this could be for earlier detection of cancer in children!
Please do a show that educates our citizens about childhood cancer by inviting childhood cancer experts to explain truths. Please invite others with huge hearts and huge wallets to join them. Please begin the process of assembling the most powerful Childhood Cancer War Machine possible. With adequate funding for research, a cure is within our reach.
I can’t help taking this one step further… this fact is unnerving…
The causes of childhood cancer are largely unknown.
We need brilliant-minded scientists/researchers to operate this Childhood Cancer War Machine so they can locate the cause and finally rip childhood cancer out by the root!
Hoping and praying,
Melinda
Author of Grace: A Child’s Intimate Journey Through Cancer and Recovery
Therapy Dog Echo Helping me through chemo
Melinda Marchiano 
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