I've been working on this personal project for almost a month now.
Here in Indonesia, you can try reaching out to these places, whichever is nearest to your location:
It could've been faster, but with my bad time management skill plus two babies, less-than-a-month is a pretty good achievement for me.
"So, what is it you've been working on?"
In short, I was working on a campaign in which I tried to:
🎗 Raise awareness about Child Cancer
🎗 Do something nice for these #PejuangKankerCilik a.k.a. children with cancer
Problem is...
At first, I knew... probably nothing about child cancer.
Call me ignorant but it's the truth.
I even tried to withdraw from this campaign.
In daily life, sometimes I'd bump into random stories or informations about child cancer, and I *deliberately* avoided them because I was too scared to imagine that such a harsh reality could happen to a child, let alone reading some facts about it.
I was afraid that if I could imagine it, it could REALLY happen.
But it DOES happen.
It is happening RIGHT NOW in Indonesia and around the world, and approximately 300,000 children aged 0 to 19 years old are diagnosed with cancer each year. 😭💔
The good news is:
💖 Between 30-50% of cancers are preventable by healthy
lifestyle choices such as avoidance of tobacco
💖 When identified early, cancer is more likely to respond to
effective treatment and result in a greater probability
of survival, less suffering, and often less expensive
and less intensive treatment
💖 Cure is possible for more than 80% of children with cancer
💖 Even with late stage cancer, the suffering of patients
should be relieved with good Palliative Care
Source: WHO
Knowing that there is still HOPE, I set my fear aside and decided to join this campaign anyway. 🙏
When talking about child cancer,
FAMILY 👏 AWARENESS 👏 IS 👏 KEY 👏
As parents, of course we all hope and pray that only the best things would happen to our kids. But sometimes, shit happens. And knowing that early detection could make a HUGE difference for children with cancer, I feel it's important that we should at least KNOW the basic things about childhood cancer, which I'm about to lay out here in this blog post.
Myths & Facts
First, get to know the myths and facts surrounding cancer in children:
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| Source: @ccfsingapore @kitabisacom |
Now, the most important thing in this post:
Awareness & Early Detection
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| Source: @p2ptmkemenkesRI |
Get to know these possible signs and symptoms of cancer in children:
Continued, unexplained weight loss
Headaches, often with early morning vomiting
Increased swelling or persistent pain in the bones, joints, back, or legs
Lump or mass, especially in the abdomen, neck, chest, pelvis, or armpits
Development of excessive bruising, bleeding, or rash
Constant, frequent, or persistent infections
A whitish color behind the pupil
Nausea that persists or vomiting without nausea
Constant tiredness or noticeable paleness
Eye or vision changes that occur suddenly and persist
Recurring or persistent fevers of unknown origin
Source: cancer.net
If you recognize any of the unusual signs or symptoms above, DON'T WAIT.
Please talk to the family doctor or immediately take your kid to one of these places listed below.
Where To Diagnose Cancer in Children
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| Source: @p2ptmkemenkesRI |
Bidan Desa (local doula) / Posyandu (Pos Layanan Terpadu) / Puskesmas (Pusat Kesehatan Masyarakat) / Rumah Sakit (hospital).
That being said, let's move on to this concerning fact, which is very relatable here in Indonesia:
In high-income countries more than 80% of children with cancer are cured,
but in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) only about 20% are cured.
Source: WHO
"So, what can I do for these kids?"
...you might ask.
Well, aside from donating money to a trusted foundation, you can also try doing a form of Palliative Care (as I've mentioned above, and), which I did.
I asked my followers on Instagram to say something encouraging, something thoughtful for children with cancer, by writing a comment on this post:
...and I told them I will present their messages to these precious 32 Pejuang Kanker Cilik who are being taken care of by Yayasan Pita Kuning.
Did you know, that assistance, prayer, and words of encouragement can help alleviate the suffering of patients? Moral support like this is an important part of Palliative Care method, which can help improve the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with terminal illness (such as cancer), so that they can feel better and hopefully, get better and have an increased life expectancy. ☺️🙏💓
In total, including mine, I've compiled 10 encouraging messages (THANK YOU, kind-hearted people 🥰).
Then I thought,
HOW can I present these meaningful messages to these kids, in a beautiful and personal way? 🤔
Printing them all together was the idea, but even if I put the 10 messages in a frame, and gave 1 frame to each kid, it wouldn't feel very personal, I thought to myself. And besides, if I were those kids, would I want to hang a frame filled with messages (no matter how meaningful) from strangers? Hmm, maybe yes, maybe no.
BUT. Maybe...
If I put these messages in an EMPTY NOTEBOOK, which they could actually use in their daily life,
and, AND, if those notebooks each have their own name, maybe that would be the best way! 😻
So happy when I found these beautiful notebooks online.
Not only the quality is nice, they also have such positive words on the cover, just perfect for the kids!
I just had to print the kids' names on a transparent sticker, and voila!
A bespoke gift for Saqila and Raffa. ❤️
As for the beautiful encouragement messages itself...
I used different handwritten font types for each of the messages so it would feel more personal, despite the fact that they were printed, since I couldn't possibly rewrite all the messages 32 times. 😭🙏
I put 3 messages on the second page, 4 messages in the middle of the book, and 3 messages on the second last page. Also, adding the stickers was my favorite part!!! 😍
Reading all these messages put a smile on my face.
Some of them made me cry, too. :')
I truly hope the kids would cherish and make use of these books,
and during a hard day, they could open one of these pages,
read the thoughtful messages and get encouraged,
or at least they'd feel they are loved. ☺️💖
Bonus!
Some behind the scenes during the making of this project!
My personal assistant: Arwen and Ant! 😂🥰
Thank you so much for reading and see you guys on my next post! ♡
