Climb to Conquer Cancer 2010

When my granddaughter was barely four years old, she was diagnosed with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This is a bit of a summary of the disease. ALL is a fast-growing cancer of the white blood cells. Lymphocytes are a type of white blood cells that the body uses to fight infections. In ALL, the bone marrow makes lots of unformed cells called blasts that normally would develop into lymphocytes. However, the blasts are abnormal. They do not develop and cannot fight infections. The number of abnormal cells (or leukemia cells) grows quickly. They crowd out the normal red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets the body needs.

Needless to say our family was devastated with this news. I won’t go into all the specifics, but about 8 weeks after the diagnosis, Butterfly was in remission and after another two years of chemo and treatment she is now cancer free. I may be wrong on all the specifics, but looking back, the whole thing was a blur and I just operated every day making life good for both Cinderella and Butterfly.

Last year my daughter, Cinderella and Butterfly participated in the Climb to Conquer Cancer 2009. This year they participated again. So here are some great pics of them climbing the mountain for a cure.