Joshy's family are teaming up with Beat Nb through our Because of _____ program. Beat Nb is a national childhood cancer nonprofit which drives research into a cure for neuroblastoma. Learn more of how we are helping to cure childhood cancer.
Joshua is an energetic 4 year old that loves to be silly, dance, and spend time with his almost 3 year old little brother and baby sister. The day before Thanksgiving we took him to the doctor because of a droopy eye and back pain. The doctor immediately sent us to get an MRI scan that revealed Joshua has a large tumor in his chest behind his right lung. After lots of testing, Joshua was diagnosed with Stage 3 high-risk neuroblastoma.
His cancer is localized to one area by what the doctors can see, but an expert pathologist that looks at neuroblastoma cells said the types of cells he has are more aggressive and need to be treated with the high-risk protocol in case there are cancer cells in other places in his body. We are 4 months into his cancer treatment journey, he has been so brave and such a trooper. He has already undergone an emergency surgery to remove part of the tumor near his spinal cord, had multiple other minor surgeries, 5 rounds of chemotherapy, and lots of unexpected hospital stays and blood transfusions.
Joshua’s surgery to remove his tumor will be on April 1st. After his surgery he will still have almost a year of treatment left to include: another round of chemotherapy, stem cell transplant, radiation, and immunotherapy.
We are trusting God and our medical team to heal our sweet Joshy so he can live a long happy life.
Many people have asked us what they can do to help. Honestly, as a parent, all you want is for your child to have the best chance for survival and beating cancer. This is why we want to support research. We know that future studies could help save so many children and find therapies that are less harmful to the body.
Only 4% of federal government cancer research funding goes to study pediatric cancer so we feel this is an area of need. Neuroblastoma is an aggressive form of childhood cancer and is the second most common tumor cancer in children. No child should have to endure cancer. Please help us do something about this.
