About 50 local families receive a childhood cancer diagnosis every year. While the doctors and nurses at Golisano Children’s Hospital find innovative ways to treat those kids, other organizations also work to support their families.2-year-old Kate Matteson is full of spunk and sass. But back in February, she got sick — really sick. Doctors first thought it was an ear infection and then the flu.“I’m like something’s not right, something is not right, her face is swollen, she can’t walk, she still has a fever of 105, this is not normal,” Kelly Matteson said.So, they did blood work. It was cancer. Acute Myeloid Leukemia with the very rare RAM Immunophenotype, only about a dozen children are diagnosed with it every year in the United States. “I felt like the world was swept out from my feet and my daughter is just lying there, she’s not moving, not talking, just crying and not wanting to be touched because everything hurt,” Matteson says.
Kate was the first child in the world to receive a very particular treatment schedule, “one of the medications she got, it’s not new but it’s a medication that’s used actually for ovarian cancer, “ Matteson explains. It worked well enough for her to be able to get a bone marrow treatment that has now put her in remission. “Because of the treatments she had at Golisano, she’ll be able to help other kids and she already has,” says Matteson…