Kirk Prouty Photography
Coming soon “The Kirk Prouty Foundation”

 My name is Cowboy Ron Maguire.
Please call me at home: 843-225-0021 or on my cell 843-442-3558.
Our e-mail is charityphotosvc@belllsouth.net
And our web site is: www.charityphotosvc.com
Please help us by sending our web site info to your friends & family.
e-mail us with your thoughts and suggestions on how we could do better.

PLEASE READ THIS, THEN WHILE YOU ARE STILL MAD SEND
A LETTER TO YOUR US REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS.

From Christopher’s mom,
You can make a difference:

I want you to imagine that within a 2-week time your life can go from normal to hell and never be the same. Your child that looks fine today in that amount of time (or less) can go from having no symptoms to needing an emergency trip to the Dr's or hospital where they will tell you that your child has cancer. Every single day this becomes reality for 46 families in the US (Over 12000 annually). And while some statistics will tell you that great strides are being made in cure rates for the children - CANCER IS STILL THE NUMBER ONE DISEASE CAUSING DEATH IN CHILDREN. In 80% of the cases the cancer has spread before it is detected. As adults we are told what we can do to reduce our risks of getting cancer - watch our diet, don't smoke, don't drink to excess, etc. You C-A-N-N-O-T D-O A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G to protect your children from this. It's a nightmare you don't want to think about happening to you and one you'd rather face yourself than have to watch your baby face. I don't know the figures for other cancers, but for Neuroblastoma (the number one solid tumor in children) stage IV (remember 80% of cases have spread by the time it is diagnosed) the figure is about 35%. If your child makes it through initial treatment you find yourself holding your breath waiting to see if you will be one of the lucky 1/3. When you don't land in that lucky (even the lucky third will face mild to severe long term side effects the worst being a secondary cancer) 1/3 you are told that Relapsed nueroblastoma is ALWAYS fatal. You watch your child playing without a care in the clinic playroom trying to take that in. How can that be? You grasp for hope.... God is the one with the plan. But you can’t dictate that plan. You hope that a cure is found in time for your child (and all the other children that are in the same boat that you’ve fallen in love with in the meantime). We just need to buy enough time for the scientist to find that one piece of information we’re missing – the cure. Sounds easy right? If you're that scientist you know that it's hard to get the funding to research childhood cancer. Much more money in adults - there's more cases. That explains why most of the treatments our kids get wasn't developed for them, but was found to work in adults and transferred to them (better than nothing right?) So here you are, your child has relapsed. While waiting for this treatment you try the most promising. You hope that your childs body can survive the harsh effects of the treatments and that there will always be one more thing to try. That's not always (unfortunately it not usually) the case. And it's not for a lack of new developments. But it takes money to take a promising idea from lab to hospital bed. And childhood cancer research has been notoriously under funded for quite some time.

(Quick example - Childhood cancer kills more children per year than cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, asthma and AIDS combined. There are 15 children diagnosed with cancer for every one child diagnosed with pediatric AIDS and yet the U.S. invests approximately $595,000 for research per victim of pediatric AIDS and only $20,000 for each victim of childhood cancer.)

Maybe knowing all of this will outrage you when you hear that funding will be cut even more for childhood cancer research. "In recent years, the amount of funding for childhood cancer clinical research from the federal government has been declining. In response to the most recent cutbacks, the National Cancer Institute has decreased funding which especially impacts childhood cancer research. As a result, the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), the world’s pre-eminent childhood cancer research organization, has been forced to put 20 new studies on hold and decrease enrollment in new clinical trials by more than 400 children next year.

Obviously this is something I feel very personally about. Chris is one of those relapsed kids. In the 3 years he's been fighting this the number of kids that we've met that haven't made it would break your heart. I can hope and pray that a cure comes in time for Chris, but this is bigger than just us. This is all the children that will be diagnosed tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and every single day until we finally figure out how to stop this nightmare. It doesn't have to be this way. But if we don't make our voices heard our representatives in Washington will think that we're ok with them putting childhood cancer research on the bottom of their priority list. I understand that there's only so much money and cuts have to be made somewhere but I don’t feel we should forfeit the lives of out children in the process.

If you are reading this page you know how important this is. You've come to love these children. If I can't convince you to fight for them, then we'll never be able to convince those in Washington. If you want to know how to make your views heard go to: http://www.curesearch.org
and click the link on the left about budget cuts. You can put in your zip code andit will allow you to put in your contact info and send an e-mail to your representative. I promise it’s easy to do. They’ve even got preset messages (and you can personalize if you want).

Photographs copywrited by Ron Maguire Photographer. All rights reserved. 

[Home] [Photo Gallery] [Our Vision] [Our Background] [Clients] [PEDIATRIC CANCER] [Contact Us] [Recommendations] [News] [A Poem by Cowboy Ron] [A Prayer to Saint Jude by Ron]