GOOD WORKS ENCORE
United Against Cancer
Organization supports families dealing with childhood cancer by
LISA MACKINDER
"Why do you do this?”
When people pose this question to Farrell Howe in connection with the heart-wrenching circumstances she encounters working as a volunteer and board member with the area nonprofit Cancer Families United, she answers, “Because I made a little girl a promise.” The young girl died at age 10 on an airport tarmac in Philadelphia aboard a private company jet that does “angel flights” for critically ill patients. She had won Howe’s heart when they met at Bronson Pediatric Oncology Hematology Clinic, in Kalamazoo, while Howe’s own son was going through treatment for leukemia. “You wanted to do everything for her because she was just so sweet,” Howe says. The child was in Philadelphia for an immunotherapy treatment study at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The therapy is taxing on the body, so the girl “fought and fought and fought” to become healthy enough to receive the treatment, Howe says. But upon arriving in Philadelphia she developed an infection that excluded her from the trial. She died on the plane that was to take her home to Kalamazoo. Shortly after, Howe visited the girl’s gravesite, which was sprinkled with one of the girl’s favorite things: glitter. “I said, ‘Your death isn’t going to be in vain. I will do whatever I possibly can to fight so that this doesn’t keep happening to children like you,’” Howe recalls.
Confronting childhood cancer Children dying of cancer is a sobering topic that Howe says the media often shies away from. But the subject demands attention: 43 new cases of childhood cancer are diagnosed every day in the United States, according to Curesearch, a foundation that supports research to end childhood cancer. For children, cancer is the No.1 cause of death by disease. Howe and her husband, Colin Howe, were unaware of those statistics until December 2013, when their son, Garrett, then 2½, was diagnosed with b-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Farrell had taken him to the pediatrician for an ear infection, when it was discovered that Garrett also had anemia. They were sent to Bronson Children’s Hospital, where Garrett endured several tests, including a double femoral artery poke. “I had to restrain him for that and hold him down,” she says, “and that was one of the most traumatic things I’ve experienced during this process.”
22 | ENCORE SEPTEMBER 2018
While waiting for answers, Howe and Garrett fell asleep curled up together in a hospital bed. Her husband’s face was as white as a sheet, she says, when he roused her the next morning. His three words took Howe’s breath away: “Garrett has leukemia.” “I couldn’t cry,” Howe explains. “I couldn’t scream. I just was struggling for air.” One thing that offered a bit of comfort to the Howes: a Care Bag from Cancer Families United (CFU) given to them at the hospital. When Howe looked inside looking for pain relievers for their pounding headaches, she discovered much more: They weren’t alone. “That family care bag (was) really a godsend,” Howe recalls. The CFU bag not only contained other much-needed necessities, such as snacks, toiletries, note paper and a calendar, it showed that CFU was there to provide support and services to Southwest Michigan families affected by childhood cancer. That’s because CFU’s founder and president, Mary Kay Pederson, and her husband, Corey Pederson, who created the bags, had already traveled this road. Their daughter, Emma, was diagnosed with b-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2010, at age 3. Emma had been having ongoing ear infections, which can be a symptom of childhood cancer, Pederson says they later found out. Emma’s visits to the pediatrician involved a recurring cycle of fever, antibiotics and rest. On one visit, a visiting doctor proposed Pederson let Emma get well and then come back for blood work — a test no other doctor had yet suggested. Pederson insisted on a blood draw that minute. Even eight years later, tears trail down Pederson’s cheeks as she recalls the phone call that told them Emma needed to immediately see a specialist at Bronson Children’s Hospital. While Pederson was on the phone, her toddler, Abby, climbed onto a nearby table, dumped out a box of Cheez-Its, and proceeded to crunch the crackers beneath her feet. “I continue to include that into my recollection of all this that happened to us because it’s significant — it’s the colliding of two worlds,” Mary Kay explains, brushing away tears. “That is my life: You have a toddler getting into mischief, but at the same time your other child is about to embark on a very hard journey. That moment still gets me choked up.” From left: Garrett Howe, now 7, and Emma Pederson, 11, show pictures of themselves when they began cancer treatment at ages 2½ and 3, respectively. Both are in remission.