Please Donate to Sadie Rose at Justgiving.com

Sadie Rose is 2 years old and fighting high risk neuroblastoma!

Neuroblastoma is a very aggressive kind of cancer that mainly affects little children and babies like.

On 8th August 2009 our beautiful daughter Sadie Rose was born, weighing a very healthy 8lbs 6oz. But in October 2010 aged just 14 months old Sadie Rose was diagnosed with a childhood Cancer called 

Neuroblastoma.

Sadie has survived front line treatment here in the UK, which has included an initial 70 days of Chemotherapy in November 2010, major surgery in February 2011 to remove her tumour which was located above her left kidney and wrapped around the main artery in the body, her Aorta. This was a life threatening operation but she came out fighting and was home after just over a week in hospital. Sadie recovered amazingly well.

In March 2011 Sadie then had an intensive course of High Dose Chemotherapy to prepare her body for her Stem Cell Transplant. Sadie had her own Stem Cells given back. Unfortunately as a side effect from her High Dose Chemotherapy she developed a very serious and potentially life threatening disease of her Liver, called Veno Occlusive Disease (V.O.D). This caused her tummy to swell and she gained over 2kg in just a few days, this was due to fluid being retained. The disease took over Sadie's body entirely and she ended up on Oxygen 24hrs a day. The Intensive Care Team came to see Sadie and had told us that they would expect to see her in ICU by the weekend. Our consultant had prepared us for the worst. This was the hardest part of our journey so far.

However Sadie pulled through and was discharged from Leeds General Infirmary after 8 weeks.

Sadie had 3 weeks of radiotherapy in June. This seemed to go very well, so much so she didn't want to leave!!! However in July, Sadie started Immunotherapy which didn't go according to plan......and after just 2 weeks Sadie suffered a seizure and after an emergency CT Scan the specialist Neurosurgeons discovered a tumour on the right side of her tiny brain. The next day a 4 hour operation to remove the tumour was carried out, and sent to the lab for tests. Which showed that the tumour was in fact Cancerous. The Neuroblastoma had grown......yet again!!

Since July Sadie endured yet more gruelling Chemotherapy and after an MRI scan at the end of the 6 week course of treatment to destroy any microscopic cells. Results showed the tumour had in fact grown again.

In November Sadie Rose started radiotherapy. The last stage in the treatment plan is a course of 8H9 Thearpy.

Sadie and her family need all the support they can get, please help them by getting involved in any way you can. Here are some ways the family has set up for fund raising.

There is a fund to help with costs of life saving treatment in America at 

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The price for this treatment is £500,000!!!!!

Please help give Sadie the lifeline she desperately needs and deserves. 

To donate please visit: 

http://www.justgiving.com/sadie-rose-appeal

Or visit any Natwest Branch

Account Name: Neuroblastoma Children's Cancer Alliance UK

Account Number: 24196878

Sort Code: 50-30-05

Or make cheques payable to:

Neuroblastoma Alliance UK - Sadie Rose Appeal

and send them to:

3-4 Sentinel Square, Brent Street, London NW4 2EL

Thankyou is not enough

With Love & Hope

http://www.sadierosecliffordappeal.co.uk/default.html

http://www.childrenscancer.org.uk/

Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall Facts!

Most who read this see the numbers the Vietnam War created.

To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010.

The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.

Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall, appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E – May 25, 1968), then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth (numbered 70W – continuing May 25, 1968) and ending with a date in 1975. Thus the war’s beginning and end meet. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle’s open side and contained within the earth itself.


The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.

BELOW ARE SOME FACTS THAT YOU NOT KNOW~
*There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.

*39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.

*8,283 were just 19 years old.

*The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.

*12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.

*5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.

*One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.

*997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam .

*1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam .

*31 sets of brothers are on the Wall. Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons.

*54 soldiers on attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia a lot from one school.

*8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.

*244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor & 153 of them are on the Wall.

*Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.

*West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation 711 are on the Wall.

The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest . And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.

The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam . In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.
The most casualty deaths in one month was May 1968–2,415 casualties were incurred.

From the National League of Families for POW/MIA’s In Southeast Asia

http://www.ourexcellentadventures.com/category/just-thinking/

A personal note: My Father was deployed to Vietnam in March of 1968, I was three months old. That year was one of the worst years in the Vietnam War. My Mother at home without the internet, cell phones or any way of communication besides the USPS was forced to watch updates on "censored" news from television networks that chose to air information to the US. It was a horrible time for our Veterans and for their loved ones waiting for them to return home. My Mother recently read an article about the TET Offensive of 1968 and told me how it was to be at home not knowing from day to day where my Father could be. She had heard his base camp had been over ran by N. Viet Con. As days went by with no word from my Father or the US Army she wrote a letter to his Commanding Officer to get any update possible. As she tells me this she pauses to say "it has been so long I can not recall what his Commanding Officer wrote back to me". I am patiently waiting for her to continue and she then tells me she was informed within a few days that my Father's Platoon was out on detail at the time of the attack on his base camp and no one in his company had been injured or killed.

Of course the above is one tiny bit of the long, long story both my Mother & Father have to tell. I am writing their story, it has been in the works for a while and I suspect it will be a while longer before it is complete. Our family is one of the blessed families to have our Vietnam Veteran returned home to us alive. Sgt. Jimmy D. McDaniel, US Army Special Forces received the Bronze Star for what must be another chapter in this story and returned home with most of his hearing lost. 

Today he is doing well but is suffering from Parkinson's Disease, Neuropothy, PTSD and many other illnesses due to exposure to Agent Orange while serving his country in the Vietnam War March of 1968 ~ March of 1969. He is my hero and all Vietnam Veterans are everyone US citizen's hero!

Posted by... Angie

Service Dog Training by Patriot PAWS!

Patriot PAWS provides service dogs for disabled Veterans!

The mission of Patriot PAWS is to train and provide service dogs of the highest quality at no cost to disabled American veterans and others with mobile disabilities in order to help restore their physical and emotional independence. Patriot PAWS intends to build partnerships with state and community organizations to help develop and support this goal.

Patriot PAWS, a not-profit organization, trains and provides service dogs for disabled American Veterans in order to help restore their physical and emotional independence and to provide a service for other Americans with mobile disabilities.

Partnerships with community and state organizations help support this undertaking and allow Patriot PAWS to reach its overall goal. Each dog is customized to the individual needs of the owner with tasks as varied as finding assistance in emergencies and helping with laundry.

In addition to helping with daily tasks, one of the most beneficial contributions a service dog provides to a disabled partner is its life long devotion and unconditional love. This idea became reality thanks to founder Lori Stevens. Stevens is a certified dog trainer with more than 20 years of experience working and volunteering for several dog-training organizations. In 2006, Stevens combined her passion for training dogs with her compassion for disabled American veterans, thus creating Patriot PAWS. In 2008, Patriot PAWS partnered with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). This collaboration allows prisoners the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than their confinement and provides Patriot PAWS a much-needed volunteer base to train quality service dogs.

• Patriot PAWS was established as a not-for-profit organization in 2006.

• The mission of Patriot PAWS is to train and provide service dogs for the benefit of disabled American veterans and others with mobile disabilities in order to help restore their physical and emotional independence.

• In 2008, Patriot PAWS partnered with community and state organizations, such as the TDCJ.

• Founder and Executive Director Lori Stevens is a certified dog trainer with more than 20 years of experience and is a graduate of the Karen Pryor Academy. She has also worked and volunteered for several dog-training organizations, including Lone Star Assistance Dog Service and Texas Hearing and Service Dogs (THHSD).

• Each dog trained at Patriot PAWS is customized to the individual needs of the owner. Tasks, both physical and mental, can be as varied as finding assistance in emergencies, helping with chores and aiding emotions for those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and brain injury.

For more information on service dogs and Patriot PAWS please visit their website at:
http://www.patriotpaws.org

Please Help Sadie Rose Clifford Appeal!

Sadie Rose is 2 years old and fighting high risk neuroblastoma!

Neuroblastoma is a very aggressive kind of cancer that mainly affects little children and babies like.

On 8th August 2009 our beautiful daughter Sadie Rose was born, weighing a very healthy 8lbs 6oz. But in October 2010 aged just 14 months old Sadie Rose was diagnosed with a childhood Cancer called Neuroblastoma.

Sadie has survived front line treatment here in the UK, which has included an initial 70 days of Chemotherapy in November 2010, major surgery in February 2011 to remove her tumour which was located above her left kidney and wrapped around the main artery in the body, her Aorta. This was a life threatening operation but she came out fighting and was home after just over a week in hospital. Sadie recovered amazingly well. 

In March 2011 Sadie then had an intensive course of High Dose Chemotherapy to prepare her body for her Stem Cell Transplant. Sadie had her own Stem Cells given back. Unfortunately as a side effect from her High Dose Chemotherapy she developed a very serious and potentially life threatening disease of her Liver, called Veno Occlusive Disease (V.O.D). This caused her tummy to swell and she gained over 2kg in just a few days, this was due to fluid being retained. The disease took over Sadie's body entirely and she ended up on Oxygen 24hrs a day. The Intensive Care Team came to see Sadie and had told us that they would expect to see her in ICU by the weekend. Our consultant had prepared us for the worst. This was the hardest part of our journey so far.

However Sadie pulled through and was discharged from Leeds General Infirmary after 8 weeks.

Sadie had 3 weeks of radiotherapy in June. This seemed to go very well, so much so she didn't want to leave!!! However in July, Sadie started Immunotherapy which didn't go according to plan......and after just 2 weeks Sadie suffered a seizure and after an emergency CT Scan the specialist Neurosurgeons discovered a tumour on the right side of her tiny brain. The next day a 4 hour operation to remove the tumour was carried out, and sent to the lab for tests. Which showed that the tumour was in fact Cancerous. The Neuroblastoma had grown......yet again!!

Since July Sadie endured yet more gruelling Chemotherapy and after an MRI scan at the end of the 6 week course of treatment to destroy any microscopic cells. Results showed the tumour had in fact grown again.

In November Sadie Rose started radiotherapy. The last stage in the treatment plan is a course of 8H9 Thearpy.

Sadie and her family need all the support they can get,  please help them by getting involved in any way you can. Here are some ways the family has set up for fund raising.

There is a fund to help with costs of life saving treatment in America at 

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The price for this treatment is £500,000!!!!!

Please help give Sadie the lifeline she desperately needs and deserves. 

To donate please visit: 

http://www.justgiving.com/sadie-rose-appeal

Or visit any Natwest Branch

Account Name: Neuroblastoma Children's Cancer Alliance UK

Account Number: 24196878

Sort Code: 50-30-05

Or make cheques payable to:

Neuroblastoma Alliance UK - Sadie Rose Appeal

and send them to:

3-4 Sentinel Square, Brent Street, London NW4 2EL

Thankyou is not enough

With Love & Hope

http://www.sadierosecliffordappeal.co.uk/default.html

http://www.childrenscancer.org.uk/