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Carter Strong

Carter Escobar / Honor Pages

Carter Strong is joining forces with the Megan Bugg Global Rhabdomyosarcoma Research Laboratory at cc-TDI. Our mission is simple: to continue developing treatment options so that kids like Carter have the chance to live healthy, productive lives.

  • $2,014

    Raised

  • $10,000

    Goal

  • 13

    Supporters

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About Carter Strong

Carter Strong was a happy, healthy, second-grade student when he began experiencing intense back pain. After months of investigation, he was received a diagnosis of stage 4, Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma fusion positive, with a PAX3-FOX1 gene mutation. This meant that our precious 7-year-old son had a 4% chance of survival of 5 years or more. Carter's treatment protocol consisted of 20 toxic chemotherapy cycles and 70 painful proton radiation treatments that left severe side effects. He fought through frontline treatment, maintenance treatment and eventually palliative care.  As the disease progressed and he was put on hospice, Carter was brought home to honor his wishes to be together as a family. During these final weeks he was constantly battling pain, which was never controlled. When Carter took his last breath it was not beautiful or peaceful. It was traumatic - screaming in pain for the last time just a few minutes before he died.

Our children deserve more than this, Carter deserved more than this.  Roughly 4% of the National Cancer Institute's budget is devoted to children's cancers. This tragic reality means that generally families of children fighting cancer or those who have started foundations in their child's memory, are the ones fundraising the difference. Rhabdomyosarcoma specifically hasn't had much research into targeted therapies or drug trials. The Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute (cc-TDI) is looking to change that. cc-TDI is composed of a team of biologists and engineers working collaboratively to push safe, effective and less toxic drug treatment options into clinical trials for underserved childhood cancers. Their mission is clear: to make ALL childhood cancers universally survivable.

We CAN and SHOULD do better. A cure for RMS is out there and we're on a mission to discover it. Will you help us fund this research and bring better outcomes for children like Carter?

- The Escobar Family

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