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A Request for Help

YOU can help save Hailey
…and the thousands like her around the country

On June 6, 2007, our daughter Hailey Jaye Meltz, then 20 MONTHS old, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor called a Pediatric Low Grade Astrocytoma or “PLGA” (also referred to as “JPA” or Juvenile Pilocytic Astrocytoma. We will use PLGA throughout this letter). Currently, there is no cure for this tumor and the treatments that do exist are outdated, toxic, and ultimately torturous to the thousands of kids affected.

Brain tumors are the #1 cause of cancer death in children, and the #2 overall cause of childhood death behind accidents. PLGA’s are the most common type of childhood brain tumor, yet sadly, funding and research for better treatments and an eventual cure lag dramatically behind other cancers. There is hope, but your generous donations are desperately needed to speed up progress toward PLGA SPECIFIC RESEARCH as the race against the clock has begun and time is something these forgotten children and their families cannot afford.

We, the parents of Hailey and her older sister Faith, are writing this to assist fundraising efforts to change the outlook for our family and the thousands like us around the country. We plead for your financial support in the search for kinder, gentler treatments for these kids and a 100% cure. According to experts, with new scientific advances the acceleration of research to find more effective therapies for PLGA is quite realistic, but... read more -->

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Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 9:12am

We met with our oncologist yesterday and after gathering feedback from other physicians around the country and weighing all the information, we are sticking with the current treatment for another 3 months and re-evaluating after the next MRI.  There were several factors in this decision, but one of the big ones is there just is not a clear cut next option.  Everything else out there has higher risks, toxicity, or unknowns, or a combination of all of them.  There have been cases where the chemo she is currently on (Vinblastine) has shown growth early and then shrinking.  We can't say we're totally comfortable with this decision, but we are doing the best we can right now with the many unknowns involved in this situation.  We will be watching her closely the next few months for signs that the tumor is getting bigger and causing complications.  If we see anything like that, we will probably have to take more risks and move to something else sooner.  We're in very scary territory now.

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