Christian's PPB Cancer Journey

We had a meeting with the head of the PPB Registry last week. During our talk with her, she told us that because of the one blood sample they would take for research, they are able to detect PPB cancer from blood work now. This means that they will be able to hopefully do early screening for PPB in new patients and be able to track tumor response to chemo treatments. This should hopefully lead to children not needing to have to go through so many CT scans in the future. Christian would have loved to know that because of the research labs they drew from him, that future children could need less CT scans. She also told us that they are going to make him an honored angel at this coming years Pine Tree Apple Tennis Classic charity event in Minnesota. We are very honored that they continue to think of Christian and honor him. His tumor samples are continuing to help progress future treatments and they are currently using his samples to test 63 possible new chemo’s that they will narrow down to the top three to more on to the next step in the research phase. He is changing the world and still helping in finding a cure for this awful rare cancer, PPB. No one can understand the depths of childhood cancer unless they lived it and seen what we saw. It breaks your heart in a thousand pieces, but it is infinitely worse when it is your own child. He was so happy and full of life and hope. He wanted the world to hear his story. We reminded him every day how strong he was and how much we love him and were proud of him. Talking with the head of PPB research and a member of her team we found out that Christian, our son, touched their hearts and they always continue to think of him and all the amazing stories they heard about him over the years. They will never know how much it meant to us, that his entire team of doctors cared so much about him. He was so special and always will be. It’s not fair, no child or family should have to go through this. We need to figure out how to get the word out about childhood cancer. We need everyone’s help in spreading his story and every other child’s story and try to spread as much awareness as possible to try and help raise money to find cures for all childhood cancers.