Acknowledgements - This Battle Which I Must Fight: Cancer
in Canada's Children and Teenagers
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the help of many
people. For the data, we thank the pediatric
oncologists across Canada and the directors and
technical staff of provincial and territorial cancer
registries. For record linkage and data analysis, we are
indebted to Martha Fair of Statistics Canada and
Robert Semenciw and Paul
Villeneuve of Health Canada.
We thank the following people for the time and care they took in
reading drafts and for the helpful suggestions they offered:
- Ms. Jackie Brown and Ms. Beth
Duthie, Public Affairs, Foothills Hospital, Calgary,
Alberta
- Dr. William Crist, Department of
Hematology/Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital,
Memphis, Tennessee
- Dr. Christopher Fryer, Division of Pediatric
Hematology/Oncology/Bone Marrow Transplant, UBC and British
Columbia Children's Hospital, Vancouver, British
Columbia
- Dr. Claire Infante-Rivard, Faculty of
Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
- Dr. Elizabeth Kaegi, Medical Affairs and
Cancer Control, Canadian Cancer Society/National Cancer Institute
of Canada, Toronto, Ontario
- Dr. Anthony Miller, Department of Preventive
Medicine and Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, University of
Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
- Dr. Eleanor Pask, Candlelighters Childhood
Cancer Foundation Canada, Toronto, Ontario
- Ms. Diane Robson, Data Services, Saskatchewan
Cancer Foundation, Regina, Saskatchewan
- Dr. David Tubergen, Division of Pediatrics,
The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston,
Texas
We are grateful also to Dr. Isra Levy of Health
Canada for comments on the early draft, to Dr. Christopher
Brown of the University of Calgary for information on bone
marrow and stem cell transplants, to Lisa Paterson
who helped us over the summer and to the staff at Camp
CanCare (at Camp Horizon) for allowing us to glimpse
moments of joy in the eyes of their campers. Special thanks go to
parents and siblings Lorraine Beaudoin, Louise
Champoux-Paillé, John and Jennifer Jans, Donna Kooistra,
Linda Kwasney, Zella Tangen, and Christine
Wandzura for reading an early draft and letting us know
whether this book would meet the needs of those closest to the
problem of cancer in the young.
Finally, to the children, teenagers, parents and others who
contributed their words and images, our thanks for making this book
come alive.
The flower with all the
petals and leaves on it is the healthy flower. It has a sad face
because it is raining. The wilted, bald flower is the cancerous
flower. It may be a little wilted and have no petals or leaves but
it is happy to be alive even if it is raining. The healthy flower
doesn't know how lucky it is to be alive and have all its
petals. All it's worried about is the rain. This is true in
real life as well. When I was getting my chemo in the hospital I
would listen to what people were complaining about and I would
think "If that's all you have to worry about then you are
doing pretty well." People would act like it were the end of
the world if the fan was blowing too hard on them or if they would
get home in time for dinner but I was worrying about whether I
would get better or would I die?
Melinda, age 13
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