Childhood Cancer Life: My Day With Aubrey

Photographs are special because you can tell an entire story with them without using a single word, it can convey emotions, and feelings. Photographs make connections, photographs can show challenges in our world along with celebrating the greatness in the world.

The authors tell the reader that a picture must be interpreted like an essay or piece of writing. The motive and goal of the author or photographer must be figured out.

Once the doctors told Henrietta’s husband, Day, that he could not bring the children to see Henrietta anymore. Day then let the children play right outside of her hospital room window, “She’d pull herself out of bed, press her hands and face to the glass and watch her children play on the lawn” (66). Being able to merely see her children playing brought enough strength to Henrietta to get out of bed even in her sickly state of health. Even as painful as her times in the hospital is having her family just outside of her window brings Henrietta joy and

According to “The Women in the Photograph”, there was a photo of Henrietta Lacks as “young and playful, oblivious to the tumor growing inside her (Skloot, 1).” No one would have known her if it wasn’t for her cancer and her cells that helped the world discover important advances. If it wasn’t for the cancer, she would

II. Thesis: Today I have the opportunity to inform you all about the number one childhood cancer, Leukemia, and also the new technologies we are using to help combat this disease.

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

Taylor, a 7 year-old suffering from ewing sarcoma wished to be a singer. She always looks at the glass with it being half full. “I actually really like not having hair,” Taylor says. “It’s so much easier to get ready and you can never get your hair pulled.” She’s been through surgery and radiation. Volunteers helped Taylor’s wish come true. They helped her record in a recording studio, helped her do a photoshoot, and even at a local restaurant, the owner offered to host her album release party.

Christensen is an oncology nurse and a mother of three. Naturally, she knows how difficult it is when patients lose their hair and also how much little girls love Disney princesses like Princess Elsa from Frozen and Princess Ariel from The Little Mermaid. When her best friend’s daughter, Lily, was diagnosed with cancer, Christensen wanted to support Lily through her journey. She knew that apart from love and care, children with cancer still wants to be a child who can run around freely and have fun instead

Sontag claims that “photography is, a social rite, but it can also be a defense against anxiety and a tool of power (page 130).” She backs her claim by stating “photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possessions of space in which they are insecure.” (Sontag page 131). In other words, having pictures allows people to tell stories that may not be exactly true. I agree with Sontag because I have witnessed and experienced how pictures can hurt someone emotionally while empowering others.

You are watching the television, and a St. Jude commercial comes on. The commercial gets you thinking about those small children that are fighting to survive. Maybe you donate to the cancer organization, maybe you will not. This commercial gets you thinking of those children, and families, and how they are coping with this big obstacle in their lives. The commercial shows all of those sick innocent children in the hospital that need help, and answers. Childhood cancer is something that can either give a child a second life as a result, or take their life away at such a young age. Most people do not know a lot about cancer, or the ways that they can help cancer victims. There are many things that people can learn about childhood cancer such as, the most common types of childhood cancer, the ways to treat it, bringing awareness to this vicious illness, and how the doctors, families, and patients deal with this challenge.

In John Berger’s essay “Another Way of Telling,” Berger argues that photographs contain a “third meaning.” Berger claims that the third meaning is personal and relies almost completely on the individual viewer. As a result, no photograph can convey the same message to any two people and no two photographs can convey the same message to any one person. Here, the validity of Berger’s assumption crumbles. All photographs communicate one absolute truth.

Lifestyle factors often put one at risk for developing cancers later in life. Smoking and sun exposure are just two of many that can theoretically predispose a patient to certain types of cancers such as skin or lung. However, the cause of childhood cancer is often unknown. Approximately 61% of childhood cancers are from leukemia and brain tumors originating in the mesodermal germ layer (McCance & Heuther, 2014). The mesodermal germ layer “gives rise to connective tissue, bone, cartilage, muscle, blood, blood vessels, gonads, kidney, and the lymphatic system” (McCance & Heuther, 2014, p. 443). The most commonly diagnosed childhood cancer is acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which can be easily cured with the appropriate treatment. The average age that this cancer is diagnosed is ages three to five and usually affects more males than females (“Acute Lymphoblastic,” n.d.).

1. The two primary roles for nursing profession in cancer prevention include prevention and teaching. Prevention is aimed at preventing adult type cancers and informing people of possible carcinogens, including cigarette smoking and excess exposure to light. Lung cancer is a leading cause of death in America. The teaching aspect would be teaching family the signs and symptoms of possible childhood cancer. Unfortunately the signs and symptoms of cancer in children can be very subtle and may be diagnosed later d/t this.

Representation and the critique of ideology apply to photojournalism because a photo does not exist in isolation. This means that a photo always has more meaning than what is shown. A camera only captures what is in front of the lens, not around or behind it, therefore there is always more to the story than one image can portray. A photo also has different

Raising awareness is a step in the right direction to escalating advocacy and support for childhood cancer research (acco.org 1). One nationwide project that brings in the most financial aid for visitors and patients is St. Jude’s Children's Research Hospital (StJude.org 1). The mission of St. Jude is "to advance cures and the means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment" (StJude.org 1). That being said, the support "helps ensure that St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital will continue its lifesaving mission of finding cures and saving children” (StJudes.org 1). Few people realize the dire situation patients and families are in when they are deciding to not