Do you know how many kids were diagnosed with cancer in the time it took you to read this sentence? Two. Two kids. The numbers are adding up by the second. I certainly didn't know that until it happened to my sister. She was fine one second, then sick the next. No one knows when it's going to happen, and that's not even the scary part. What's worse is that people are shoving the awareness and support of children to the bottom. Research for breast cancer and other cancers more prominent in adults, are held on a higher pedestal than the children affected by cancer. Right now, research and support for childhood cancer (which includes every cancer) is funded by only 4 percent of all money raised for cancer. That's an extremely small number.
For the family of a child who was diagnosed with cancer, their lives can be shaken harder than an adult being diagnosed. Many have to move or travel to a hospital that is certified in pediatric care. Moms have to find out how to get her other kids to school, while she stays at the hospital. I've seen kids as young as two months old have to deal with treatment, while their parents struggle just as much as they do. It's heartbreaking to see them not get the support they need.
Orange just so happens to be the color of the Leukemia ribbon, the cancer my sister was diagnosed with when she was just a year and a half old. It's the color of the shirts my family made to support her. It's the color we based our nonprofit off of. It's the color that I will be wearing for the rest of my life. And just because our rivals wear orange, doesn't mean I will stop wearing it.
