On March 19th an article was published in the London Free Press about our decision to initiate a Human Rights Complaint against the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Over the past few years, we have watched our 14-year-old daughter struggle with the late-term effects of cancer treatments she had while a toddler. Having to come to terms with her diagnosis was difficult, we still hold on to some animosity over getting her diagnosed, we were not angry that she had cancer because there was no one to blame for this monsters attack. Like most Momcologists ( a mom who has cared for a child with cancer) I started looking into what this diagnosis could mean for my child’s future, we had believed that her biggest hurdle would be to survive, but all these years later we wonder if the biggest hurdle may be living a life with quality. It was like going down the rabbit hole. I started to look into chemotherapy drugs and was shocked to find that the drugs given to our daughter were developed over 40 years ago for adults not for children, that in the past roughly 70 years only 3 or 4 cancer drugs have been developed for children but hundreds for adults. Why would this be? so deeper into the rabbit hole I went. What was behind this. $$$$. I was horrified to find out that less than 5% of Federal Cancer research dollars went to childhood cancer. WHAT!!!! It made me sick to my stomach. Ask yourself this. If you were a researcher and new that historically the government turned down requests for funding for research into childhood cancer would you want to waste your valuable time and energy into a study knowing that the chances were high that it would never end up getting funded? of course not. I have heard people say that research done for adult cancers will trickle down to children. Seriously?? number one it isn’t true but if it was then could the same not be said about childhood cancer research trickling down to adults? Our children are not small adults. There are so many physiological differences between adults and children, their bodies are still developing, the way in which they metabolize medications. Simply giving a child a smaller dose is ridiculous. Ever listen to the commercial for a drug and it lists all the possible side effects? can you imagine what a commercial for these drugs being given to children would be like? there is no way your cramming all those potential side effects into one 60 second commercial, May cause drowsiness, secondary cancers, learning disabilities, infertility, hair loss, nausea, liver damage…..you get the picture. I have tried so many times to talk myself out of this but I keep coming back to it, our children are simply not important enough, obviously because if they were I wouldn’t be dedicating my life to changing things. You see several times a day my daughter comes to me, her cheeks blazing red, like a billboard those cheeks tell us that she isn’t feeling well, sometimes she lays in my lap and cries, she tells me over and over I don’t feel good, I hurt, she suffers from depression and anxiety and there is not a damn thing I can do to help her. I should be listening to her dreams for the future, she used to talk about being a teacher, she doesn’t talk as much about that maybe its because she is starting to realize that this dream is unattainable. You think its hard to tell your child that Santa isn’t real, try telling them that no they actually cannot do anything that they set their minds to, she should be playing with friends and creating memories not spending most of her days in bed, in pain. I do tell her that everything that she is going through is not in vain, that we will help give children like her a better chance. I won’t stop fighting for what is right. Here is the thing that perplexes me maybe more than why childhood cancer is so underfunded. See everyone I know is either a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, literally everyone I know has some connection to a child, Aside from the minute minority of those with the coldest of hearts many of whom must work for the government, most of us want what is best for children, we realize that our children are the future of our country, they are the future doctors, lawyers, business people, they are the ones that will find cures for diseases, they are the future moms and dads, most of us would give our lives for our children yet most of us are not doing much to express just how much we disagree with the current level of funding. Are you to busy taking your healthy children to hockey, dance or music classes, are you so caught up in the lives of your healthy children to realize that the only difference between you and I is my child was diagnosed with cancer but guess what the day before I heard the word cancer and my child’s name in the same sentence I was just like you. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe that is all that separates your world from mine. My daughter was born with a brain tumor,to young for her cancer to be caused by environmental factors, it was chance, luck of the draw, she was given the short straw. How lucky do you feel? you put a seat belt on your child, just to be safe that if you were in an accident he or she would have the best chance. Right now the government has your child, my child riding in the back of pick up truck sitting in a lawn chair. So maybe you were like me and didn’t know how bad the funding was,I sure didn’t, but now you know, so what can you do about it? Well for starters you can hug your children and never take their health for granted, secondly you can find who your federal member of parliament is and reach out to them, let them know that you find what is happening unacceptable. There is a facebook page “Our Children are Worth More Than Five Cents On the Dollar” follow it and keep up to date with what is happening. You notice I didn’t say reach into your wallet and give money to research, this is because it is about advocating. Plus you have not idea if that money would even find its way to childhood cancer research. Instead reach out to your friends and family and share with them what you have learned.