It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. Your young child is seriously ill.
Andrew and Giana Miller of Carpinteria lived the nightmare, with their three-year-old son Henry.
"He was quite fatigued. He couldn't ride his bike out of the driveway," said Andrew Miller. "It was followed by really significant bruising on his legs."
Miller said it was a blur after that.
"We went to his pediatrician's office. We saw the on-call pediatrician. He just took a look at Henry, and said I think you need to go to the ER. They diagnosed him with leukemia."
Henry spent more than nine months of the following year as a hospital inpatient, as he started what would be more than three years of chemotherapy.
Miller admits nothing prepares you for a diagnosis like this, especially when it’s for your three-year-old.
"Getting the diagnosis of cancer for your child is very, very scary," said Miller. "Is he going to die? Will he live? How long with the treatment take? It was very traumatic."
The situation was even more complicated for the Millers. They had a second child who was just three months old. And, Andrew Miller wasn’t working, because he was preparing for his bar exam. That’s where a grass roots Santa Barbara based non-profit called the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation stepped up to help.
"We're grateful to the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation for helping us out emotionally and financially," said Miller. "That first year was terrible."
The two decade old foundation has helped about 250 families in the last year.
"Teddy Bear is an organization that serves an entire family when they have a child that is going through pediatric cancer," said Brittany Wazny, who is Executive Director of the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation.
"We do that through three core programs, which provide financial, emotional, and educational support," said Wazny. "We're 100% local. We serve the Tri-Counties, from the bottom of Ventura County up through SLO County."
Miller says the chemotherapy worked for his son Henry. He’s now ten, and doing the kinds of things any ten year old would do.
"He did great overall. He's on a travel baseball team, flag football, he's on a soccer team," said Miller.
He says Henry finally figured out he had cancer, but it came when they were planning a picnic to celebrate his victory over it. Miller said it was mentioned on a flyer for the event, and Henry came to him and asked his dad if he knew that he had cancer.
Miller says the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation played a huge role in helping the family get through the crisis. He's so grateful to the non-profit, he became a volunteer, and now serves as Chairman of its Board of Directors.
Miller said like in the case of his family, most people don’t discover the foundation until they need it. People in the region’s medical community know it exists, and steer families towards it for help.
The Foundation isn’t government funded. It survives through donations, grants, and fundraisers, and is helped by an army of about 700 volunteers.
