“It’s been twelve hours a day, six days a week, for the last thirty years. My goal during all these years was to help all I could help. I’ve given 200%. I’ve given transplants to over 1200 kids. I’ve published as many papers as I could. I’ve contributed to some major achievements here. I feel happy because I've done my part. But now I’m almost finished. It’s time for the young people out there to finish the job. They’re going to be smarter than us. They’ll know more. They’re going to unzip the DNA and find the typo. They’re going to invent targeted therapies so we don’t have to use all this radiation. Me? My goal for the remainder of my life is to not be useful. I want to learn Portuguese. I want to play the guitar. I want to eat, drink, and enjoy the company of my friends. I recognize these are selfish things. But at some point we must treat ourselves as well.”
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“The caretakers play a crucial role, but there’s no way to predict how a parent will react to this. Sometimes they are the best helpers. They come in wanting to win. They say, ‘We’re going to beat the crap out of this thing.’ And that positive attitude flows down to the child. ‘I can’ becomes ‘we can.’ But sometimes the parents give up before treatment begins. You see it in their eyes. The battle is lost before we start. They say ‘I can’t,’ and that becomes ‘we can’t.’ The child becomes defeated and that hurts us. Because the child is the captain of this team and we need our captain to be strong. But I’m not judging these parents. They are experiencing the toughest thing a human can go through. On a scale of zero to death, this experience is right next to death. So it’s not fair to judge a person’s response. And there’s very little we can do about it. It’s almost impossible to change someone’s attitude. Because there’s never one reason that a person feels defeated. There are twenty or thirty reasons. People bring their entire lives with them into this hospital. We can provide encouragement. We can say, ‘Things will get better soon.’ But we can’t change someone’s entire life.”
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“The caretakers play a crucial role, but there’s no way to predict how a parent will react to this. Sometimes they are the best helpers. They come in wanting to win. They say, ‘We’re going to beat the crap out of this thing.’ And that positive attitude flows down to the child. ‘I can’ becomes ‘we can.’ But sometimes the parents give up before treatment begins. You see it in their eyes. The battle is lost before we start. They say ‘I can’t,’ and that becomes ‘we can’t.’ The child becomes defeated and that hurts us. Because the child is the captain of this team and we need our captain to be strong. But I’m not judging these parents. They are experiencing the toughest thing a human can go through. On a scale of zero to death, this experience is right next to death. So it’s not fair to judge a person’s response. And there’s very little we can do about it. It’s almost impossible to change someone’s attitude. Because there’s never one reason that a person feels defeated. There are twenty or thirty reasons. People bring their entire lives with them into this hospital. We can provide encouragement. We can say, ‘Things will get better soon.’ But we can’t change someone’s entire life.”
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We’re about 93% of the way toward our goal of $1,000,000 to help the team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in their fight against pediatric cancer. Our donations will go toward the development of specialized treatments to give kids with rare tumors a chance at life. Thanks so much to everyone who’s donated so far. Even if it’s a small amount, please consider contributing: http://bit.ly/1TpFcdy
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