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The Options are Limitless When it Comes to Raising Money for Kids with Cancer!
Our third-party fundraisers have done some amazing things to raise money for childhood cancer care. Hosting an event in support of POGO is only limited by the extent of your imagination. You can throw a themed party, organize a competitive dodgeball tournament, cycle across Ontario, shave your head, create a team challenge at your office, even workout in your PJs to raise awareness about the unique issues young cancer patients face.
At POGO, third-party (individual, community, school and corporate) events are crucial to our annual fundraising goal. The funds you raise provide financial assistance to families so they can pay for out-of-pocket costs associated with their child’s treatment, support survivors with customized school and work counselling when their disease or its treatment has left them with learning challenges, and fund promising research that examines the impact of childhood cancer and its treatment.
Have an idea but don’t know how to get started? Our team and easy-to-use fundraising platform are here to help! We can brainstorm your vision to help maximize your recruitment/attendance/fundraising, and we have pledge forms, videos and marketing materials to help make your event a HUGE success.
Holding an event for POGO is a meaningful way to make a difference in the lives of children and youth with cancer, survivors and their families, and it can also be a fun way to engage your friends, family, classmates and colleagues.
What will you do?
Check out POGO’s easy-to-use fundraising platform for more ideas
POGO Satellite Clinics Mark 25 Years of Providing Care Closer to Home
This year, 2023, marks POGO’s 40th anniversary and 25 years of providing care closer to home through the POGO Provincial Pediatric Oncology Satellite Clinic Program. POGO’s longstanding partnership with community hospitals across Ontario began in 1998 to reduce the logistical challenges experienced by families who live outside major city centres where hospitals with specialized childhood cancer programs are located.
Read on to learn more about POGO’s Satellite Clinic Program.
What is the POGO Satellite Clinic Program?
The POGO Satellite Program is a networked, shared-care system based on a partnership between POGO, eight community hospitals and the specialized childhood cancer programs at SickKids (Toronto), McMaster Children’s Hospital (Hamilton), Children’s Hospital (London) and CHEO (Ottawa). POGO Satellite Clinics are located in the community hospitals and enable aspects of a child’s care to occur closer to home. Each Clinic and the children’s hospital with which it is linked work collaboratively to provide integrated, seamless care for children with cancer and their families.
What are the POGO Satellite Clinics located?
POGO Satellite Clinics are in these communities across Ontario:
- Grand River Hospital, Kitchener-Waterloo Campus
- Trillium Health Partners, Credit Valley Hospital Site (Mississauga)
- Southlake Regional Health Centre (Newmarket)
- Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital
- Peterborough Regional Health Centre
- Scarborough Health Network, Centenary Hospital
- Northeast Cancer Centre, Health Sciences North (Sudbury)
- Windsor Regional Hospital, Metropolitan Campus
How do POGO Satellite Clinics help families?
With standardized childhood cancer care available closer to home, families spend less time travelling and away from work with a potential loss of income and time separated from their home and community. They also have the confidence of knowing that their child is receiving the best quality care, coordinated by the healthcare teams at their POGO Satellite Clinic and the associated children’s hospital. While long-distance travel cannot be eliminated altogether, receiving components of care closer to home vastly reduces families’ overall levels of stress, disruption of work and school attendance, and expense.
“Having a POGO Satellite Clinic so close to home cuts down on the cost of gas and, more importantly, helps us maintain some semblance of regular life. When Ryla has a fever, the POGO Satellite Clinic is our first stop. This minimizes the disruption in our lives and allows us more family time.”
– Roberta Webster, parent
How does the POGO Satellite Clinic program help the overall healthcare system?
POGO Satellite Clinics enable the hospitals with a specialized childhood cancer program to increase their capacity to provide more complex treatment and/or monitoring.
“Having patients seen and treated closer to home has allowed the healthcare staff and resources in specialized childhood cancer programs to focus on patients that might require more specialized care. It also eases both in- and out-patient numbers in these programs on any given day, allowing for more time with each family. The built-in communication between the POGO Satellites and the specialized childhood cancer programs ensures seamless care. Our families report their visits at POGO Satellites as a very positive experience. They report the kindness of staff and individual care received as fostering a welcoming environment that has the additional benefit of proximity to their home.”
– Dr. Carol Portwine, Division Head, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology/Oncology, McMaster University
How is the geographic location of a POGO Satellite Clinic determined?
Many factors are considered when determining the geographic location of a POGO Satellite Clinic including, but not limited to, caseload in the region and geographic distance to a major hospital with a specialized childhood cancer program. POGO helps ensure that healthcare teams have the right mix of oncologists, nurses, social workers, pharmacists and other experts to meet the need.
“The POGO Satellite Clinic Program has been instrumental in allowing our families from Northern Ontario to get the specialized care they need close to home. It allows patients to remain with their families at a challenging time in their lives, and also with their friends and community supports. Working with the POGO Satellite Clinic at Northeast Cancer Centre, Health Sciences North really shows how we are all doing the best for our amazing patients.”
– Dr. Donna Johnston Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology, CHEO
How can families be sure they are receiving the best care at a POGO Satellite Clinic?
POGO creates and updates operational standards and guidance documents so that comprehensive, technologically-advanced childhood cancer care can be delivered as close to the child’s home as is compatible with the level of care required. That care also has to be equivalent to care received in a specialized childhood cancer program. POGO remains an important resource in promoting partnerships between healthcare teams across the child’s treating hospitals, monitoring activity in the Satellite Clinics and promoting early referral to each community hospital to maximize capacity to provide complex cancer treatment closer to home. POGO also provides regular professional development opportunities for healthcare team members.
“We have a close-knit team. I love our work family of registered nurses, a registered dietitian, Satellite lead pediatrician, child life specialist, welcoming receptionist and music therapist.”
– Deb Crann, POGO Satellite Clinic Nurse Coordinator, Grand River Hospital
When Your Baby Has a Brain Tumour
Even though I was a new parent, I had this intuition that something wasn’t right with my baby girl. Ryla’s head seemed too big for her body when I compared her to other babies. She also developed “café au lait” spots on her body which I assumed were just birthmarks but were actually a sign of an underlying condition. At six months old, Ryla was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic disorder that typically causes benign, slow-growing tumours on nerve tissue.
At ten months old, I noticed Ryla’s eye wasn’t tracking correctly. Our pediatrician didn’t see anything unusual, but he knew we needed to monitor Ryla closely because of her diagnosis, so he referred her to a pediatric ophthalmologist. Ryla’s condition changed quickly over the next month, and we ended up at SickKids before we even got to the appointment.
It started on Christmas day at my parents’ house. Ryla’s left eye was swollen and wouldn’t stop watering.
A few days later, she woke up from a nap, and we were shocked to see her eye had gone from blue to brown. My husband, Rob, and I rushed her to Credit Valley Hospital and then to emergency at SickKids
Getting the diagnosis
Ryla had a mass compressing her optic nerve, causing proptosis (bulging) and blood leaking into her eye. She needed an ultrasound and an MRI to uncover what the mass was and its exact location. The wait was excruciating for us and very uncomfortable for Ryla, who went 24 hours on IV nutrients only.
Finally, at 11 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, Ryla got her MRI, and a few hours later, we were told our baby had an inoperable brain tumour.
We were sent home with the knowledge that the next step would be chemotherapy, but because the quick growth of Ryla’s tumour was atypical, it would need to be evaluated by the tumour board at SickKids to determine the best course of treatment.
Typically, this type of tumour would not get biopsied because the procedure can cause blindness, but since her condition changed so quickly, the hospital staff felt the tumour was aggressive and wanted to know what they were dealing with. An optic nerve surgeon explained that he would try to go between the bone and eye to do the biopsy but warned us that he might need to remove some of her bone to get a clear path to the tumour.
Celebrating Ryla’s first birthday
We had to do something special for Ryla’s first birthday because we thought it might be the only one we would get to celebrate.
Ryla’s birthday occurred just a few days after the diagnosis and before the biopsy. We would not have made a big fuss because she was so young, but now that her future was uncertain, we couldn’t let it go by without marking the day.
While driving from Toronto to our home in Streetsville, our friends and family rallied to decorate the house, and we had a huge celebration. It was incredibly touching to see the beginning of our support network forming.
It took about two weeks, but the biopsy showed that the cancer was not as aggressive as they had feared.
Ryla was approved for a clinical trial that included weekly chemotherapy at the hospital, but the results were not promising for her. She was approved for a second clinical trial involving a daily oral medication, but they had to alter the recommended dose to try to avoid any damage to her liver. It worked! Her tumour stabilized as long as she was on the medication, but started to grow again when the clinical trial ended. Luckily, she has been granted compassionate access to the clinical trial chemo which she continues today.
“It was hard to hear that Ryla was blind in one eye, but when the doctors told us they couldn’t resect the tumour to prevent it from spreading to her right eye, it was devastating. Removing her left eye will make her more comfortable, but we need to rely on the chemotherapy to protect the vision she has. It makes her future uncertain.”
-Rob McCormack
Getting care closer to home
As life shattering as this has been for us over the last 4.5 years, Ryla takes it (mostly) in stride. She is an inquisitive, smart, sassy kid. Ryla is always happy to go to the POGO Satellite Clinic at Credit Valley Hospital near our house—she loves the toys, and the staff make her feel like a superstar. She has even learned to advocate for herself—letting them know that she doesn’t want eye drops if they aren’t necessary and asking for the child life specialist when she feels vulnerable.
Support from a POGO Interlink Nurse
The road has been and continues to be very rocky. As Ryla got older, she started to grasp that other kids don’t have to go to the hospital all the time.
And when she started school, it became starkly apparent to her that she looks different from everyone else. Her classmates would ask, “Why do you have one big eye and one little eye?” Arvinder, our POGO Interlink Nurse, came to Ryla’s school and explained to her class that everyone is unique. Some people look different because they have different colour hair, eyes or skin. She taught the students how to ask Ryla questions that wouldn’t make her feel bad, and Ryla feels more comfortable and loves going to school. Arvinder also advocated for a special needs EA in the classroom and a therapist for Ryla.
POGO has been with our family from the start. When Ryla was diagnosed, a POGO Interlink Nurse was assigned to help us navigate the challenges ahead. I have been on maternity leave and critical illness leave since Ryla was born, so our income has decreased significantly, but our expenses have increased. When you spend several days in a row at the hospital, you buy food and other things that you wouldn’t have to if you were at home. Our POGO Interlink Nurse pointed us to resources like the POGO Financial Assistance Program to help pay for out-of-pocket costs. And having a POGO Satellite Clinic so close to home cuts down on the cost of gas and, more importantly, helps us maintain some semblance of regular life. When Ryla has a fever, the POGO Satellite Clinic is our first stop. This minimizes the disruption in our lives and allows us more family time. We are not out of the woods yet. Ryla’s second surgery has not been scheduled yet, and we don’t know what post-surgery will look like, but we know our POGO supports will help us get through it.
By Roberta Webster
Celebrating Down Syndrome Awareness Day and Darwin
Darwin and his mom aka “The Boss”
Darwin recently turned 21, graduated high school, rang the end of treatment bell at CHEO and has been accepted into an Academic Assistance for Adults with Developmental Disabilities (AAADD) college program.
What was most exciting about ringing the bell?
I loved seeing all my favourite people from high school virtually on Google Meet. I saw Ms. Russett, and Ms. Coe, and the ladies in the office. All my favourite nurses came too. They helped me learn to count “1-2-3” before I had a needle!
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What are you most looking forward too now that you are 21?
I want to learn how to use a debit card and get a job where I can wear a nametag and a vest. I want to work at Walmart at cash register #7 and at the Apple store.
What will you do in your C.I.C.E. college program?
I will learn to take the bus with my phone, using Google maps. I want to learn about money math. At college I will see my friends and they have nice lockers.
Any shout outs to friends & family?
Thank you to my mom, she’s The Boss and always came to CHEO with me. The staff on 4 North were awesome. The Fire Safety Officer, Richard, came to teach me the rules about fire safety. I also did a FaceTime with Liam from the Ottawa Fire Dept. about river safety. I loved seeing my CHEO teacher, Ms. Nancy. She’s awesome and I learned to use assistive technology. Every day I wrote a page in my book with Book Creator.
The Trouble with Wigs when you’re a Black Teen with Cancer
Cairo Gregory was 15 years old when she was diagnosed with cancer. As a young woman of colour, she has found that the lack of representation of Black cancer patients in the media, as well as the lack of cancer-related resources specific to Black women, has added to her challenging journey.
In mid-March 2022, as my 3rd-period class ended, I doubled over in excruciating pain. An ultrasound a few weeks later revealed that I had a mass the size of a small coconut in my uterus. The hospital ordered blood work and lots of tests and then sent me home.
A few days later, my mom texted while I was at school and told me she was waiting outside to take me to emergency. The tests revealed that my hCG hormone levels were very high—a typical occurrence during pregnancy (which I knew wasn’t the case), but it is also a tumour marker.
Ultimately, my official diagnosis was ovarian cancer with an immature germ cell tumour—a very rare form of ovarian cancer. My treatment protocol was nine weeks of chemo followed by surgery on July 12, 2022. The worst part of chemo—at least physically—was that my lungs filled with fluid, and my heart started swelling. My body wasn’t expelling the fluids being pumped into it fast enough. It was hard to breathe, and I felt like I was drowning from the inside out. It was challenging to manage that. I also didn’t expect all the physical and social repercussions of treatment.
Of course, I had seen young characters on TV or in the movies who had cancer, but none of them were Black. The depictions of the frail, skinny, pale patient did not match my own experience. I gained weight. I developed dark spots on my body, which looked like permanent dirt on my mixed skin. And my hair fell out in patches—making me feel insecure and not wanting to see anyone.
I got excited when it was suggested that I visit a hospital wig salon and accessories boutique, but that proved to be a bust. The wigs were the wrong colour and texture—usually straight to wavy; they didn’t stock wigs geared to a teenager of colour who wears her hair naturally. So a resource that was created to help cancer patients look and feel good wasn’t equipped to help me look and feel good. My cultural identity was excluded from that space. I left the salon feeling deflated—it was isolating not to have the same resources available to me that other young women might have.
Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of Black people around me or in the media talking about cancer and it made it harder for me to find options available to me.
A lot of my friends of colour have a family member or family friend who braids or styles their hair and they have an established place to go to buy products and wigs. I never really had that growing up, although my mom did her best and she was always patient with my hair. We struggled when it came to finding a wig that would suit me; it was hard to find something that was good quality but that was also not going to cost us a couple thousand dollars. In the end, a Black hair stylist custom made a fabulous wig for me (at cost), and taught me how to style and maintain it. I feel more comfortable and confident at school and in social situations.
In retrospect, my experience as a Black young woman with cancer taught me the importance of representation and access. It is essential for Black children with cancer to have access to wigs that match their hair texture and skin tone. No one should be made to feel like they have to settle for an ill-fitting wig. The industry needs to recognize that people come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and that diversity should be reflected in the products that are offered. I hope that my story can inspire positive change and make the process a little less challenging for future generations.