Help Kari Whitehead Photography Support Cancer Research! {Central PA Portrait Photographer}

I am run­ning my first 5K as part of the Four Season’s Park­way Run & Walk event on Sep­tem­ber 30th which sup­ports the Can­cer Cen­ter at Children’s Hos­pi­tal of Philadel­phia (CHOP)!

I have men­tioned my daugh­ter Emily in pre­vi­ous posts here and here. She was diag­nosed with acute lym­phoblas­tic leukemia (ALL) in May 2010 when she was 5 years old. At that time, doc­tors told us that almost 90% of chil­dren with ALL are cured. Although she had a long jour­ney ahead, which included 26 months of chemother­apy, we felt cer­tain that with those odds she would be cured. We were shocked when we learned she had relapsed in Octo­ber 2011. She had to begin a new treat­ment regime which con­sisted of 4 months of heavy chemother­apy and was sched­uled for a bone mar­row trans­plant in Feb­ru­ary 2012. Unfor­tu­nately, she relapsed again in Feb­ru­ary just two weeks before her sched­uled trans­plant. Doc­tors tried another round of chemother­apy but was unable to get her back into remis­sion. They told there wasn’t much more they could do because they didn’t think giv­ing her more con­ven­tional chemother­apy would ever get her back into remission.

We were not ready to lose Emily and we were not giv­ing up. We took her to CHOP and enrolled her in a highly exper­i­men­tal phase I clin­i­cal research trial. Emily was the first pedi­atric patient in the world to receive CART-19 cells. Emily’s own T-cells (a type of white blood cell) were removed from her blood and then in a lab were ‘trained’ to rec­og­nize and kill can­cer cells. Once the T-cells were trained they were infused back into Emily’s blood. Although three adults were pre­vi­ously treated with CART-19 cells and had pos­i­tive results doc­tors weren’t sure how or if the cells would work in a child. On May 10, 2012 we found out the CART-19 cells worked! They had killed all the leukemia cells in Emily’s body and she was in remission! Today, Sep­tem­ber 10th, marks 4 months since she has been in remission.

We know we would not have the time we have now with Emily if it wasn’t for the CART-19 trial and the bril­liant and amaz­ing doc­tors who took care of her. We think about that every sin­gle day. We saw first­hand how CHOP saves lives every day.

Our family’s motto is “We Believe”, so we named our team “Team Believe” for the Park­way Run & Walk. Please help us sup­port the Can­cer Cen­ter at CHOP — join or donate to Team Believe! http://giving.chop.edu/goto/KariW

Have you been inter­ested in sched­ul­ing a photo ses­sion for Fall/Holiday Fam­ily Por­traits? If you donate $50 or more to Team Believe you will receive a 30 minute photo ses­sion plus one 8x10 photo of your ses­sion for FREE! Just make your dona­tion online (please make the dona­tion in your name — if you check anony­mous I can­not ver­ify who it is) and send me an email (kari@kariwhiteheadphotography.com) to let me know you made a dona­tion of $50 or more. I will then be in touch to sched­ule your ses­sion! Ses­sions will take place the end of Sep­tem­ber through the mid­dle of Octo­ber. A lim­ited num­ber of ses­sions are avail­able. You will also receive dis­counts through my online order­ing sys­tem for any addi­tional photos/products you order! I am SO excited to give back!

Emily, now 7 years old, is doing fan­tas­tic and started 2nd grade two weeks ago! You can read more about Emily’s story on her Face­book Page: Prayers for Emily (Emma) White­head or Car­ing­bridge.

Happy Mother’s Day!

This photo of my 6-year old daugh­ter Emily was taken on Easter just a few weeks ago. I am espe­cially grate­ful this Mother’s Day. It has been almost one year ago that she was diag­nosed with Acute Lym­phoblas­tic Leukemia (ALL). It has been a rough year but I have learned to cher­ish each moment I have with my daugh­ter even more. She has been a lit­tle self con­scious of her hair because it’s still grow­ing back in but I think it looks adorable. We plan to spend Mother’s Day out­side plant­ing flowers!

Have a great Mother’s Day!
~Kari~

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