ISF Supports Cancer Survivor Under Live My Dreams Mission Program

Hannah, diagnosed with medulloblastoma at 13 years old, endured a year and nine months of active treatment. Now a junior at Meredith College in Raleigh, Hannah has experienced long term dental issues due to the side effects of her earlier cancer treatment.

Hannah is in the process of completing dental treatments this month to correct the issues.  We are thrilled to have the chance to help her family by paying for Hannah’s dental services.  The majority of our mission’s funds go towards research and clinical trials to help improve treatment options for kids with rare cancers; however, 10% of our giving goes to to support those needs that arise from surviving beyond cancer. Unfortunately the side effects have lasting implications that bring up a plethora of additional struggles. 

Cancer survivor, Hannah, falls exactly into what we call our “Live My Dreams” mission category. We are honored to be able to help her due to your support.

“Hannah has just started her junior year at Meredith College in Raleigh.  This has turned out to be the very longest spring break ever since all of the COVID issues really got serious when she was at home during that time and she has been attending virtually ever since.  I don’t suppose any of us expected this for her time at college but we’ve certainly had to adapt before since we didn’t plan on Hannah being diagnosed with her medulloblastoma tumor less than six months after we had moved out to Charlotte from St. Louis.  We were just beginning to feel like we were starting to figure things out in our new environs a bit (still had boxes in the garage) but hadn’t really made any connections in town yet when this happened.  

During this journey, Hannah had the opportunity to go to Capitol Hill to lobby for passage of the RACE Act that would have allowed pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials on new treatments on adults and children simultaneously rather than being mandated to run the trials for children separately.  Because there wasn’t enough profit in the pediatric cancer arena, many drugs approved for use in adults were never tested for children and consequently not only do children not have the best treatment options in some cases but may suffer excessively harsh side-effects, something that Hannah experienced.  Happily, the bill passed and is now law.” -Paul, Hannah’s Dad