Bibliosphere

The first week of April is AYA (Adolescent Young Adult) Cancer Awareness week, focusing on cancers effecting those ages 15-39. The represents 89,000 people in the US, or 5% of the cancer diagnoses. That's a lot! Imagine the stress of high school and college or starting out in your career, to then be diagnosed with cancer. This awareness week was founded in 2003. Cancer warriors in this age group may be treated by an adult oncologist or a pediatric oncologist, depending on the type of tumor and the age of the person. The types of cancer differ within this age range, with breast cancer being more common in the older young adults, lymphoma with teens, and thyroid cancer throughout this age bracket. Resources: Childhood Cancer Cause Teen Cancer America ACPMP  Oncofertility Program at Michigan State University

 So something very exciting happened in my life right around the time I stopped blogging in 2014/15 and that is... I got a cat! I grew up with cats and love them dearly, so in college I was able to get an emotional support animal due to my mental illness. My cat's name is Hippie and he is now 9. He was a rescue from Best Friends Animal Society, found as a kitten in a feral cat colony. If you click on my profile you can see a blog about him that I made when I was working from home, made for a virtual program on website design (yay outdated technology badge). He loves snuggles, canned salmon juice, and going outside. His favorite toy is the Christmas tree and he'd love to bite you as a show of affection. He likes about four people, much to the sadness of my mother (because it's not her). Here's the boy himself:

I'm going to post a list of awareness weeks, months, and days in a little bit, but I wanted to spot light one happening right now, and that is that March is Kidney Cancer Awareness month. The color is orange. Kidney cancer is considered quite rare in children, but there are three main types. From Urology Facts , here they are: Wilms' tumor (also known as nephroblastoma) - about 6 to 7 of every 100 childhood cancers in the U.S. Congenital Mesoblastic Nephroma - mostly found during the first 3 months of life Renal Cell Cancer in the renal tubules - mostly found in older children They consider Wilms' tumor rare, and maybe it is in the grand scheme of things, but 5-7% of all childhood cancers doesn't feel small to me. That's about 500 kids a year. 500 families, mostly of children under the age of 5, impacted annually. And that's only new cases. Wilms' tumor is also more likely between siblings, so families could end up with multiple children all affected by a...

I am slowly working my way through the Taco Chronicles on Netflix, in the original Spanish, because I'm learning Spanish, but also it's a fascinating topic. I'm watching in reverse order, so I'm on season 3 and still need to watch 1 & 2. The third season is set in the US and bounces around to different cities with a variety of tacos. I have really enjoyed learning about the different kinds of tacos (way more than I would have ever imagined). I'm hoping that I can try some of these new kinds of tacos, like goat birria and nopales (cactus). I've found a place that sells nopales tacos, but I haven't seen the goat. A future adventure.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about where I'd like to volunteer. I volunteered a lot in high school and college, but stopped once I started working full time. I have long hours, and weird hours, and it makes having a regular volunteer gig difficult. I fully believe that, while volunteering is vital and fantastic part of our world, not all volunteer positions are for all people. But recently I realized that with advocacy organizations, I could do work from home, on a weird schedule. I do email and call my representatives after all, and I enjoy writing and blogging. So I'm looking at volunteer opportunities with some childhood cancer advocacy organizations, as well as potentially restarting my CureSearch walk team, the Rhabdo Warriors. Maybe with a new name, I'm not super attached to that one.  So wish me luck in this new adventure.

If you're looking to branch out from childhood cancer research with your donations, I can't recommend Donors Choose enough. They're a national organization that allows supporters, parents, and really anybody to make tax deductible donations in support of local (or not local) teachers. I've been able to support so many great projects through their work, from getting just the basics (which teachers shouldn't have to crowd fund for, but that's a whole other issue) to specialty equipment.  There's tons of projects, and you can filter by location, theme, age, and more. Donors Choose will also tell you if the school has an " Equity Focus ," meaning the school is more than 50% students who are Black, Indigenous, or Native American, and also that 50% or more of families are considered low income. I'm excited to have this newfound ability to support teachers, both my friends and teachers in my community. Teachers really do so much, they deserve communit...