Childhood Cancer is becoming an "epidemic" in the United States. It is robbing children of the only thing they want-a normal childhood. I once read a quote about a child who has cancer and they said, "I didn't know what being strong was...until being strong was the only choice I had." When we as humans see an epidemic of this nature, it is our job to take a look at the situation and ultimatly make a difference. Childhood Cancer is the largest cause of death by disease in children every single year. I also found many other "startling" facts about pediatric/childhood cancer. If the statistc that Each year in the U.S. there are approximately 13,400 children between the ages of birth and 19 years of age will be diagnosed with cancer doesn't startle you, I don't know what will!

In order to fix and epidemic of this nature we must first find the cause of the problem. So I did some research regarding childhood cancer and I found that childhood cancer can be caused by a number of reasons, making the cause almost impossible to find, which makes it even harder to cure. Scientists have found that genetics has a huge impact on whether your child may or may not have cancer. In fact they have even found that there is not a single cause of cancer. It is a combination of many factors put together that may cause cancer in children. The scariest part of it all is that cancer tends to just appear with regular virus like symptoms. This is why so many people call it "The Monster". As I like to say, it is the monster that kids dream about and have nightmares over, robbing them of not only there health, but a normal life.

So why is it so important to be educated on how to prevent this epidemic in not only ourselves as teens, but in future generations to come? Being educated can help you and your loved ones prevent this terrible monster! Scientists say that keeping lots of sun protection, have as little radiation exposure as possible, and being overall a healthy individual can help prevent cancer in children. However, as mentioned earlier, it is hard to determine what exactly causes this monster. But we do know that using these measures are a few way to help prevent this!

You probably are wondering what is cancer anyways? Cancer is an abornormal growth of cells in the body. The cells lose there boundries, they completley reproduce out of control, like a cell without rules. The cell does whatever it wants! This abnormal growth of cells is what cancer is! Such a simple thing it seems like! So why is it so hard to cure? Well when these cells spread and spread they begin to overtake your body, causing more and more cells to be abnormal. This is an extremley dangerous state for your body to be in, which is why childhood cancer is so deadly!

So now that you know a little piece of what cancer is maybe you can share your knowledge with others! Help us stop this epidemic taking over the children in the United States! Hopefully as time progresses we can find bettter ways to prevent this disease. Cancer won't win this battle and we will make sure of it!