As an intern in the Child Life ward at the University of California, Davis Medical Center, I was given the opportunity to work closely with many patients. In particular, I grew extremely close with a nine year old girl who was getting her gallbladder removed. After countless weeks of visiting her in the hospital, I came to my internship knowing that her surgery was completed and she was already sent home. To my surprise, I saw her name on the patient list and I quickly walked over to her room. As I approached her room, I heard a young girl screaming in pain and there she was pressing the morphine button as tears rolled down her face. I quickly learned that she was diagnosed with a terminal cancer that had already eaten away at her kidney. A week later, she was sent home because the cancer was untreatable. Over 12,400 children, in the United States alone, are affected by cancer and over 4,000 children die of cancer each year. That means that 11 children die of cancer every single day. Childhood cancer is unbiased. It deteriorates the lives of children from various backgrounds and different age groups. It steals childhoods from children who were one day healthy enough to run around on playgrounds or play basketball with their friends. It forces them into hospitals, to loose their hair due to chemotherapy, and loosens the friendships they once made with friends. After learning the detrimental affects of childhood cancer, I founded CARE-TO-CURE at the University of California, Davis.

 -Elena Lyustina
  Founder