This is awesome - the family will i know appreciate even the smallest donation - it's rough to accept help but sometimes we have to as i'm about to learn myself after over a year of trips to a cancer center , treatment , for my wife and now myself - you never know even at a relatively younger age for us all of the sudden incurable blood cancers can just appear and even for both husband at wife within 1 year - both healthy and no issues or obvious risk to explain undergoing a mutation behind such cancer...

I hope that this young perons's leukeia is a treatable type and also even curable which many are - though i only know a great deal about CML and Myeloma - all blood cancers are bad news and while it's hard for it to "shock" me now as reading about, underoing testing, etc seems to be where all of my time goes - it's shocking at first and then can kinda take over - that's why we are so lucky to ahve gotten one pinball machine for something to do at home - less stress is better for dealing with cancer or even preventing.....

please anyone that can - any help to the little one and family noted in this thread - help if you can even teh smallest contribution i'm sure would be appreciated..

Every time i read about leukemia , myeloma - blood cancer it gets me thinking as my wife has leukemia (since last year) and now myself began extensive workups related to early myeloma last summer and have progressed to definite case of myeloma which may be active in early stages at this time and though we were just out of town for each of our cases undergoing routine workups i'm now due soon for a full out of town major workup that will eat up my remaining paid time off and prob not be too much fun and of course cost a prettty penny as cancer care certainly sin't cheap..

I hope Pinsider's can at least bring a little positive change to the family called out by the O.P.

FYI on how on our little deal which while rare for the most part , for our age and for myself and my wife both to experience - the one 1 good thing pinball related - we have made it to Joystix to play some pinball last Sept and just 2 weeks ago (new Iron Man vault , Mustang LE were present on the recent trip) - we rarely have time to make it there and only once on Pac Man Fever Friday as we're so busy while in town at MD Anderson.
as my wife was diagnosed with leukemia last January (2013) , she was an RN (pediatric in fact and L&D) and can no longer work due to her cancer and myself - I too now officially have multiple myeloma (another blood cancer - but it's either in smoldering <inactive> or just beginning to become active - we were both at MD Anderson in Houston 2 weeks ago and I must return for further workups to stage the Multiple Myeloma).

Both of our cancers are bone marrow related and rare for our age (she was 39 when diagnosed and myself 39 in Aug 2010 when I was diagnosed with the pre maligant condition MGUS which is so rare in under age 50 that stats aren't even kept and even then it's only like 3% of the population with monoclonal para proteins and up to around 5% by age 75 but i was only 39 when 1st found) .......

Anyway, i had no idea of how a blood cancer can change life - both of our conditions are not curable but my wife's can be managed , luckily as mine is still early there's little effects other than anemia at this time so i'm able to work and provide income and insurance for both of us - if / when mine becomes active (which with worsening anemia this year starting in April and just during my recent MDA visit 2 weeks ago - i'm about to find out if it's becoming active, hopefully i have internal bleeding or anything else to explain the anemia other than myeloma which would be really bad - sure it's the myeloma at fault, a full hematology workup at MD Anderson early next month will determine the exact status) .

Unfortunately Myeloma is not treatable until it is active and the pre malignant condition that almost always precedes myeloma called MGUS is not treatable either as the treatments are so harsh and can even risk death - therefore treatment cannot begin until Multiple Myeloma is actively causing end organ damage.

For both my Myeloma cells and my wife's Leukemia cells - there's simply no cure yet. It would be awesome if it were as easy to catch either early and remove the cancer such as a tumor in an early stage for other types of cancer.

My wife's leukemia is chronic and requires daily TKI chemo for the remainder of her life , until the cancer mutates and the therapy no longer works , a stem cell transplant can provide a possible remission but there's a 50% chance not surviving the 1st year, so for my wife we are not going that route, will stick to the $12,000 per month oral chemo which for now is covered under insurance) . THe daily TKI chemo keeps her rate of cancer cells in peripheral blood in check but the treatment results in many bad side effects (nausea, fever, cough, and causes liver, pancreas, cardiac issues over time) - but it's either the daily TKI chemo or the luekemia would progress quickly...

If i require treatment - whenever the myeloma becomes active - it would require very rough full chemo, stem cell transplant just to keep the Myeloma at bay as Myeloma is not curable, up until a few years ago avg lifespan once active was really short - if not treated early on i think under a year. now as of 2013 most official cancer sites state that the avg Myeloma lifespan is 3 years as of 2013 figures (that includes the eldery , rates should be higher for those a bit younger).

My bet is for a TKI chemo to be developed that handles all mutations so that by the time my wife's current chemo fails there will be a replacement and for me to just deal with harsh treatment if ever the Myeloma is fully active and for both of that gene therapy which trial results were debuted last Dec at the US Hematology conference which show promising results - most trials i think have shown success in children with certain types of leukemia - the gene therapy is less expensive than other forms of chemo belive it or not (less expensive for the patient) and hardly any side effects - one day we should have a cure for the child in the subject of this post , my wife , myself .

What's odd is that my wife and myself both now have routine MD Anderson workups and I hope i can alwayss be able to support her - if i were to lose my employment, our medical bills are enormous (just her chemo alone is well over $100k yearly) even with insurance (plus i found out , there's additional co-insurance which one must pay for advanced diagnostic testing which for us is now routine, making yet another $5k per person deductible!).

The bone marrow biopsies which we both require (more often for me than my wife, thankfully she doesn't require BMB's as often as her leukemia cells can be seen via PCR testing in peripheral blood, myeloma plasma cells are in teh bone marrow and BMB's are required more often , they kinda hurt though MD Anderson personnel is so experienced that it's much less painful there than our local hospital system) .

I really didn't pay much attention to cancer until the past year as likely most everyone doesn't until someone they know or themselves have cancer - even when i had an early pre malignant condition found and my wife's initial leukemia diagnosis last year - I figured with today's technology that 'everything would be alright" ...... though it's working out , neither of our conditions is curable (though with a stem cell transplant again my wife could reach remission for some years but it's so risky to go thru the procedure).

What's also weird other than our odds of both now having dual HemOnc appointments is the Pinball connection - I saw that Barry Oursler and I believe his wife both have bone marrow related cancers - i heard that a while back - when Mustang was announced on a C2C podcast i believe - the odds of he and his wife having similar bone marrow disorders is so rare - sort of like my wife and I though we are a bit younger - i wondered if his wife had leukemia and he smoldering or active myeloma just like my wife and I ? I saw Oursler was on hand for a pinball show recently, i guess he's doing well? or perhaps i didn't even follow the story correctly and he and his wife are fine ....