Help and Hope Happen Here

When 10 year old Oliver Smith was trying out for his under 11 hockey team in the fall of 2016 his father noticed that Oliver was not as agile, fast, and flexible as he normally was. He also complained of pain in his groin area. Other symptoms arrived and in early 2017, Oliver was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma which was already at Stage 4. Oliver fought his battle for nearly 2 and half years before passing away on June 27th of 2019, just 1 day after his 12th birthday. Oliver's parents Bryan and Shauna will talk about their beloved son and the Ollie Bots Project that they started in his honor, which is helping to fund research for Ewings Sarcoma and to help local families fighting Pediatric Cancer. 

It took a confirmation from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to finally confirm that 6 year old Mia Falvey had Medulloblastoma after waiting for an official diagnosis for more than 30 days. Since the summer of 2022 Mia has been under treatment for this most common form of Pediatric Brain cancer and is waiting for an upcoming MRI which will tell the doctors what her next treatment protocol will look like. 

Bothered by pain in her shoulder blade since the fall of 2020 while she was a member of her high school volleyball team, 14 year old Eliy Simmer saw many doctors but did not get diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma until May 12th of 2021. Eliy spent the rest of that year undergoing treatment for this form of pediatric cancer and in January of 2022 her treatment protocol successfully ended. Now a high school senior, Eliy is looking forward to the next steps in her life in which she has a variety of choices to look at. Along with these choices, Eliy will continue her Eliy's Sunflowers Non-Profit, which she started to help fellow teenage cancer patients have as much comfort as they can while trying to get through their own pediatric cancer battles. 

Maggie Schmidt was a 16 year old seemingly healthy teenager when she competed in a Tough Mudder race in the summer of 2016. 18 days after that, Maggie started experiencing symptoms that would lead to a diagnosis of Malignant Rhabdoid Tumors in October of that year.  As she tried to overcome whatever setbacks came her way, Maggie had one bad break after another and passed away from this form of Pediatric Cancer on June 1st of 2017, just 6 weeks after her 17th birthday. Her mom Donna will talk about her beloved daughter and will also discuss Maggies Mission, a Non-Profit that  her family started just 4 months after her passing and means so much to Donna. 

Parker Watson was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia when he was 4 1/2 years old and is now a Pediatric Cancer survivor. His parents Michelle and Mike found out about Team Impact and Parker was connected with the Harvard Men's Hockey Team, has been their Team Impact Representative since January 31st of 2023. 
Noah Janfaza in his 3rd year of being the Student Manager for the Harvard Hockey team and is also the Liason between Team Impact and Harvard. Parker and Noah will both talk about the great experiences they have had since Parker became a full member of the Harvard team. 

Michelle Watson's 10 year old son Parker was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia when he was 4 1/2 years old in 2017. Now 10 years old, Parker was connected through Team Impact with the Harvard Men's Hockey team and he has been an official Team Member of the Crimson since January 31st of 2023. Michelle talks about how much Team Impact has meant to her family and how much joy that Parker has felt being with a group of college athletes that take their role of accepting Parker very seriously. 

Amanda Cruz has the difficult task in explaining all the things that went wrong during her son Zioniah's treatment for Lymphoma which started in late 2022 and lasted until his passing on September 19th of 2023. Amanda will talk about the myriad of mistakes that were made medically which led to Zioniah unnecessarily being in a great deal of pain during much of his treatment protocol. Amanda will also discuss the lack of support that she has received since Zioniah passed away as she is not even five months into her grieving period.

After an original diagnosis of A Typical Pneumonia after a persistent cough sent Dominique Epthorp's son Ashton to see his doctor in the late summer of 2022, a recheck of his symptoms after Ashton had a shortage of breath after running, showed that his real diagnosis was T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Ashton has been in his Maintenance program for 8 months and is looking forward to ringing the bell at his hospital, signifying No Evidence of Disease on September  9th. 

Nora Schmidt noticed that her daughter Maddie's right eye was crossing inward, one day after she had gone to her eye doctor for a simple eye appointment in which everything looked fine. This situation, which according to her Eye Doctor and a Pediatric Opthamologist could have been a common condition known as Strabismus, but  instead turned out to be DIPG. Nora will talk about Maddie's journey which lasted for just over 10 months before her passing from this Pediatric Brain Cancer on December 31st of 2022. 

Amber Friesen was told by her soon to be 10 year old daughter Taylor that she had what looked to be either a lump or a cyst on her right hand. Unfortunately what this turned out to be was the Pediatric Cancer Aveloar Rhabdomyosarcoma. On today's podcast Amber will talk about her beloved daughter who was diagnosed with this cancer in early 2020 and passed away in December of 2021. Amber will also talk about the non-profit TAYLOR'S DREAM that she started to honor the life of Taylor.