Why Giving Matters?
I have heard the sounds of parents’ grief-stricken wails; it is an audible, horrific pain I’ll never be able to erase from my memory. I have heard my own body make the unfamiliar noise of helpless desperation, and felt shocked by the sounds of my sobs - so foreign, so raw.
After watching my daughter struggle to beat late Stage 4 childhood cancer twice in three years, my eyes were opened to the grim reality that so many of our kids do not beat this horrific disease.
Countless children like my own “ring the bell” only to experience a relapse; and while many do survive, too many do not. Worse, many of the methods used to treat and beat these cancers are rooted in the past, and the cures alone can cause horrible side effects and secondary cancers.
For my darling girl, we understood too late how critical early detection is in improving outcomes.
By the time her cancer was detected, it was all over her body, in her bones, in her organs, tumors the sizes of grapefruit. We then saw her cancer return on the year anniversary of her first diagnosis, a stem cell transplant nearly killed her, and necessary chemotherapy began to cripple her. All of these medicines that were needed to save her from the wicked lymphoma have brutal size effects, and so often the cures cause different diseases later in life.
There are incredible charities and nonprofits who raise money to help families pay for the tremendous cost of treatment, and that is an invaluable contribution, but we want to take a different approach.
Our mission at Pretty Rooms Cure Cancer is:
Raise money for earlier detection, and
Raise money for researching next generation treatments.
In a perfect world, there would be no childhood cancer, but until that dream is a reality, we want to:
Arm hospitals with the most advanced equipment to catch cancers sooner, and
Ensure newer cancer treatments are developed so the medicine is not as brutal as the disease.
Click to Give!
How Your Donation will Help
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Three hospitals in Richmond share a single PET CT scanner, leading to frequent breaks, prolonged wait times, and delays in diagnosis and life saving treatments.
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CHOR has a space already outfitted for their own PET CT scanner, by donating you are helping to fund their own machine which would give sick and hurt children a comfortable, reliable place during their most vulnerable times.
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Early diagnosis gives children more treatment options including CAR-T Cell therapy ideally allowing them to avoid treatments like stem cell transplants which in some cases can cause a secondary cancer diagnosis later in life
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PET CT scanners are used to diagnose multiple conditions including internal bleeding, heart disease, and bone fractures
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CAR T-cell therapy is a precision immunotherapy that where a patient’s own T-cells are collected, genetically modified to recognize and attack specific cancer cells, and then infused back into the patient
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CAR T-cell therapy provides a highly personalized, "living drug" treatment with the potential for long-term remission in certain blood cancers, even in patients who have relapsed after other treatments.