Love for Avalon's Fundraising Page

Avalon's story starts in 2018 when she was born with a congenital heart defect called tetralogy of fallot.  She began her first year of life with two open heart surgeries and our family spent six months in San Francisco for her treatment.  Thankfully, her heart is now in great shape, but two months ago we found a lump on her right side and she was diagnosed with Hepatablastoma, a rare form of childhood liver cancer.  Less than 100 children each year are diagnosed with Hepatoblastoma, and because of this, there is very little known about the best treatment options.  

We've now relocated to Boston Children's hospital to participate in a clinical trial that is the only option for us here in the US.  Many of the typical chemotherapy drugs can cause serious damage to the heart, so this trial is our only choice.  Here at Boston Children's research is being done into sequencing genomes to determine if there is a genetic link for Hepatoblastoma, as well as clinical studies to discover better treatment options.  Even though Hepatoblastoma is rare, it is growing at a rate of up to 3% a year, outpacing tenfold the growth rates of many other cancers.  More money is spent annually on prostate research than on research into all childhood cancers COMBINED and cancer remains the #2 cause of childhood deaths.  Most cancer therapies for children are outdated and designed for adults, not children.  The side effects of many of these drugs are horrific, and other options need to be found and tested to save more children.

Please help us by directly funding research for the Dana Farber Pediatric Liver Tumor program.  

Avalon says thank you!