Month: December 2018

‘Tis the season of joy and giving

Posted hopePosted in Volunteer & Donate

Two years ago, we were stuck in the hospital around the holidays. Every random act of kindness went a long way in helping our kid smile. So this holiday season, we decided to help cheer up kids at the oncology clinic and the pediatric unit at the hospital by giving back and distributing gifts. Just simple stuff — sing-along-toys and blankets for young ones; activity kits, games, art set and coloring books for older ones. Knock, knock joke books for all ages (beware nurses and doctors, you can’t enter unless you answer it right!). For silly time, there was emoji-mania — ornaments filled with emoji plush toy, emoji bracelet, emoji led rings, and an emoji stress ball.

We met kids of different age groups. The smile on their faces made our day! A strange, unexplainable joy filled our hearts — couldn’t have had a better way to celebrate Apu’s end of treatment!

Once again, many thanks to everyone that has helped us come so far in this journey. For all those still in treatment, stay strong and hang in there! Sending our best wishes and prayers for everyone to feel better soon.

End of treatment!

Posted hopePosted in Diagnosis & Treatment


Looking back, the last 2.5 years has been a crazy, long journey — 60+ days of hospitalization, 2500+ chemo pills, 2300+ ml of antibiotics, 1400+ ml of steroids, 20+ spinal taps, 100+ clinic visits, numerous pokes / blood tests / transfusions…

SO SO glad that this is finally over!! Kid’s port came out recently. You can imagine our surprise when we saw the Deathly hallows symbol drawn on her chest bandage. What a sweet gesture by the surgeon, who got to know before the surgery that our kid likes Harry Potter! 💕💖

Many thanks to all our nurses, doctors, staff at Kaiser, friends, family and well wishers for your continued support throughout this period. We hope and pray that Apu stays cancer free, and has a healthy and happy rest of her life!

Fantasy Flight by Cops Care Cancer Foundation

Posted hopePosted in Support network

We recently learned about the Fantasy Flight event from a friend. Cops from Bay area did an amazing job at organizing this annual event for kids fighting cancer. Kids and their families were treated to a VIP experience of riding in a motorcade of 50+ cop cars on 101 freeway (yep, with traffic stopped!), and kids operated the sirens. The icing on the cake was watching Santa arrive in a helicopter to distribute gifts to the kids!

The day was packed with fun games and events, including cops dressed as Superheroes, Star wars characters, and in various other costumes. HUGE THANKS to cops from San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Fremont, Los Altos and nearby areas for creating beautiful memories for children in treatment!

Kids and Art Foundation

Posted hopePosted in Support network

Cancer sucks. Art heals.

This is the motto of the Kids and Art foundation. Started by a mom who lost her kid to cancer, they focus on improving the quality of life of patients and siblings by “healing cancer through the arts”. Check out their monthly art workshops at various studios. If your kid is in Lucille Packard (Stanford) or UCSF, they even have weekly art workshops at the hospital.

We came to know about this organization a year ago, and since then have attended every single monthly art workshop. Our kid LOVES them! Not only is it a safe space to take children in treatment, but it’s a happy space where kids can just be kids and have fun, without worrying about their treatments and scars. The joy on their faces says it all!

Tonight, they had an exhibition of artwork by kids, and a special event to celebrate their 10th anniversary. Several artists (incl. some child artists), volunteers and generous donors gathered to celebrate their milestone. The foundation has helped 1800 kids so far, and has ambitious plans to expand their reach to more hospitals / locations, including bringing art programs directly to the hospital room (e.g., for kids in the stem cell units, ICU).

Way to go Kids and Art foundation! Inspiring to see how the pain from one mom who lost her kid to cancer, was converted to giving hope and joy to several hundreds of children…