Springfield family uses story to spread awareness of childhood cancer

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — June Dallas was 13 months old when she was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma. She spent most of her life in the hospital, before she passed away in December of 2022.

Now her parents are using her story, and hoping to raise awareness on childhood cancers.

"A lot of the treatments for childhood cancer are just adult treatments that they give in smaller doses," said Ali Peden, June's mom. "So a lot of times, the treatments that these kids are getting are really toxic to their body. Some kids pass away from the actual cancer and a lot of kids pass away just from the side effects of all the treatments because they're so toxic and harsh to their little bodies."

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Peden says that childhood cancers only get 4% of national funding for cancer research.

"There's hundreds of subtypes of childhood cancer but we only get 4% while adults get 96%," said Peden. "It's just really disheartening because its our future."

The purpose of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is to help people recognize the funding discrepancy, and show how hard childhood cancer can be.

"If we look at the possibility of years of life saved, if we can cure a four year old of their malignancy, who will then live to 80 or 90 years old, that I feel is is worthy of funding," said Gregory Brandt, a Professor of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at SIU School of Medicine. "That's in comparison to treating an older patient that we can save another 20-30 years."

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Brandt says because of the rarity of childhood cancers, the experience can be very isolating. He says it uniquely impacts parents as well because they want to help their kids as much as possible, but the treatments can be very hard on kids.

"Everybody has heard of and knows people who have adult type cancers, it's a very common phenomenon," said Brandt. "They have support groups set up, there's a neighbor has the same thing. That's not the case with with pediatric cancer."

June's parents raise money for pediatric cancer research as well as local families going through the same things as them. For more information, you can check out their Facebook page, "The Journey of June Dallas."