COLUMBUS ? Andy Hoffman is urging Columbus to join his son Jack and their family in the fight against pediatric brain cancer, a leading cause of cancer mortality in children.
And he?s made doing so as easy as wearing red.
The Atkinson resident visited Dickie Doodles Friday night to drop off another shipment of Team Jack T-shirts, red shirts emblazoned with the trademark ?N? logo bearing the name of his son, an otherwise normal first-grader who is currently enjoying a few weeks free from chemotherapy before he begins treatments again later this month. The shirts are available for $15, with profits dedicated to Jack?s legacy fund with children?s cancer research foundation CureSearch.
The shirts are the newest chapter of a fund-raising strategy Hoffman and his family have been pursuing to advance research that he said has gone vastly overlooked.
?Pediatric brain cancer is a disease that?s not very well known,? Hoffman said. ?It?s horribly under funded not only by the government but by other private foundations.?
He said this specific type of cancer is quietly growing as a cause of cancer-related deaths in children. The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation reports that 4,200 children are diagnosed with this illness each year, slightly more than leukemia.
?The folks that are on the cutting edge of this research have told me that the people that ultimately end up funding the research are parents, friends and families,? rather than major foundations, Hoffman said. ?We want to get a clinical trial going and we want to get a cure for not only Jack, but for other kids who suffer from this.?
Hoffman recalled talking with his son recently about how great it will be when children with his cancer can take just a pill to treat their illness. In their imagined future, children don?t have to take Jack?s highly toxic chemotherapy drugs that compromises his kidneys and sometimes his ability to walk correctly. Hoffman is working for a future where these children?s parents won?t have to endure a pair of day-long surgeries as he has and the many points where he thought he would be losing his son.
It?s a future narrative couched in personal tones, but Hoffman insists that his effort is to raise awareness about this cancer, not Jack.
?We?re not excited about the spotlight it puts on our family, as much as we are about the spotlight it puts on the number one cause of cancer in children,? he said.
The fight against pediatric brain cancer is one that Hoffman and his son unwittingly found themselves a part of last April when Jack suffered an intense seizure caused by what was later discovered to be a tumor inside his brain.
A surgery was scheduled in Boston last fall, but before Hoffman sent his son to another potentially fatal surgery, he contacted University of Nebraska-Lincoln running back Rex Burkhead, a hero in Jack?s nascent universe. The athlete was not only receptive to the meeting, but has kept up with Jack since last year and enlisted as a full-fledged member of Team Jack, helping raise awareness about this childhood cancer.
Burkhead has received the Rare Disease Champion Award for his support and will be recognized during the game against Wisconsin at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln Sept. 29. Jack himself will be part of this commendation.
And Hoffman wants more people to be part of this celebration by donning Team Jack T-shirts at the game. Dickie Doodles is one of 33 locations in 20 communities selling the shirts, a complete list of which is available on the Team Jack Facebook page.
?This project doesn?t get anywhere without ? the vendors and their graciousness,? he said. ?Helping is contagious in Nebraska.?
Article source: http://columbustelegram.com/news/local/a96ed92e-00bf-11e2-b97a-001a4bcf887a.html
Source: http://cancerkick.com/2012/09/17/team-jack-boosts-child-brain-cancer-research/
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