Every two minutes a child is diagnosed with cancer, and yet childhood cancer research only receives 4% of the federal government's budget for cancer research. Please join me in being a voice & funding a cure in honor of all of our fighters, survivors, and angels of childhood cancer. #goGOLD

Our 3 year old daughter, Khloe Papousek, was diagnosed August 10, 2016 with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).  One of the poorest prognosis of any pediatric cancer group.  We had a six month old boy at home at the time, how can this be happening?  I never thought pediatric cancer could affect my family, my children.  No one does, until it does. Watching as a parent and feeling helpless is terrifying and wishing it was us instead of our daughter.

Khloe endured intensive month-long inpatient chemotherapy, with a week off to go back to our home a couple hours away, only to return to Omaha and do it all over again.  The time and separation has had immense effects on our dynamic as a family, sibling relationships, and marriage.  Long days and weeks in the hospital starting in August of 2016 and moving to Nebraska Medicine in December 2016 for a bone marrow transplant.  Spending her fourth birthday and Christmas in the hospital.  The leukemia relapsed in June 2017, starting from the beginning again.  Total body radiation and another stem cell transplant in September 2017.  The leukemia relapsed in June 2018, leaving no options.  The doctors had deemed her disease as incurable. There was nothing more that could be done; her body could no longer tolerate the levels of chemotherapy needed to get the disease into remission as she has already received the strongest chemotherapy and radiation there was.  Khloe gained her angel wings, December 9, 2018.  6 days before her 6th birthday.

Before I became a cancer parent, I had no idea of current treatment and statistics of these diseases.  Our children need better treatment options.  Only 4% of federal cancer research funding is allocated to childhood cancer. I had never heard of this and I had no idea.  Kids deserve more!  Awareness = Funding = Cures! 

Khloe didn't lose her battle; science and research lost the battle against time.  We hope in our lifetime we see pediatric cancers get the attention and funding they deserve.  While it is too late to help Khloe there are others that need the funding for the research to find a cure.  We pray for a brighter future for all families and children that face these devastating diseases.