Brenda Novak diabetes Auction and Retinoblastoma Awareness week: Spread the word and save lives!

There are two very important health-rlated issues I would like to bring your attention to throughout the coming week and month.

First, the Brenda Novak Diabetes Auction is up and going strong.

Click on the auction link and buy yourself some goodies while also giving money to fight one of the top killers in the world today. There are items for everyone and every budget up there, and remember every little bit helps, so get over there and start bidding!

Secondly, it’s World Retinoblastoma Awareness week, and we need your help.

I was six months old when I was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, an aggressive cancer that attacks the retinas and optic nerves of children primarily under the age of five. As you can imagine, it is devastating to parents who find out their little babies must suddenly be plunged into the nightmarish hell of chemo therapy, radiation, surgery, dialated eyes and hospitals. I underwent nearly three years of treatment, including seventy surgeries on my face, high doses of open bema radiation, chemo therapy, and yes, I do remember quite a bit of it vividly, even though I was very young.

My mother began noticing something was wrong with my eyes when I was three or four months old. She took me to several pediatricians and opthomologists who insisted that there was nothing more seriously wrong with me than a case of lazy-eye. She noticed I had trouble focusing on objects, I seemed to be in pain, and my eyes in photographs were very red. In her heart, she knew something was seriously wrong, and she kept taking me to different doctors, until one opthomologist dialated my eyes, and broke the news to my parents that I was very, very sick, and needed immediate surgery. A mother’s heart is never wrong, and my mother’s fortitude and perseverance saved my life.

Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles was one of only two hospitals in the United States at the time able to adequately treat me, so my parents began bringing me back and forth from Arizona every two weeks for care.

I do not need to tell you the strain my parents endured over the next several years. Watching your child fight for her life is a pain I can’t begin to understand because I have no children of my own yet, but I know it is heart-breaking.

When I was three, I lost my sight to the cancer when they removed both of my eyes and replaced them with prosthetics.

I am a survivor of retinoblastoma. I know first-hand the pain it inflicts upon children and their families, and I am asking for your help. It’s no coincidence that this awareness week falls so close to Mother’s Day and National prayer day.

Please say a prayer or send your thought to all the families facing the challenges and trauma of childhood cancer. Every prayer, every thought, every outstretched heart and hand makes a huge difference.

And above all else, please spread the word. If parents don’t know the signs to look for, this disease can rage out of control like a wildfire, and spread to a baby’s bones or brain, killing an infant. Retinoblastoma now has a high survival rate in the United States and Great Britain, but in other countries, this disease is still ravaging families and killing children. Only when the disease is stopped before it spreads to bones or brain is it treatable at this time, so detecting it early is vital.

Symptoms of retinoblastoma include red eyes in photographs in infants or children under age five, crossed or bloodshot eyes, difficulty in visual focus and facial pain or crying at harsh light.

For more info on retinoblastoma, please visit Retinoblastoma International.

For links and resources for parents and families of RB children, please visit Retinoblastoma Arizona.

One word from you can save a child’s life and eyesight. Spread the word to everyone you know about Retinoblastoma, and do your part to stop childhood eye cancer. Speak up, save a life; it is that simple.

Thank you.