ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — A local physician’s video went viral in her plea for the community to help donate to the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation.
According to NPCF experts, 43 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer each day.
When it comes to pediatric cancer, there are statistics, there’s research and funding being done, but there’s also stories. For some of these families at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, they live this every single day.
Dr. Meghan Martin took to her social media to help raise awareness for families and children going through this.
For Ricky Huff and his family, raising awareness for better treatments when it comes to pediatric cancer is their mission.
He lost his son, Theo, at 19-months-old after 14 long months of Chemo and treatments.
“The treatments failed him, we tried everything, every doctor in the country, great physicians, great hospitals, there just simply wasn’t a therapy for him that could save his life,” Huff said.
Huff describes his beautiful baby boy as a happy one, a child that smiled through more than a year of his treatments.
“We miss him every day and we wish he was an 11-year-old running around now and we got to see that personality flourish,” he said.
It’s for families like the Huff’s that Dr. Martin made her post on social media.
“I am exceptionally grateful for every single person who contributed, whether it was $5, $500, $1,000,” she said.
Her post has helped raise over $209,000 for the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation to help fund better research when it comes to pediatric cancer.
“I want to be able to give good news, like we have good treatments for this, we have a really good way to manage this. Unfortunately, a lot of these cancers, I can’t give that side of the good news with the bad news,” Dr. Martin said.
CEO for NPCF, David Frazer, embraced Dr. Martin and thanked her for all of the donations coming the non-profit’s way.
“About every minute we are seeing donations now over the last 48 hours. She is well up over $200,000 and it’s still going. It’s the power of one but a bigger purpose of the power of the entire community,” he said.
From translational, early development, and laboratory studies to Phase I clinical trials, NPCF is funding research across the nation, to help do better for the next child.
If you would like to donate or learn more, here is a list of resources:
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