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Jade was 14 years old when her healthy life took an unexpected turn. Her symptoms started with drooling, blurred speech, being tired all the time, and a loss of balance. As a young teenager she found herself embarrassed and unwilling to talk about her symptoms with others. She was scared and unsure of what was going on with her health. It wasn’t until she was physically unable to eat her dinner one night that her mom took her to the hospital.

Malachi Stone was hospitalized with Pneumococcal pneumonia when he was 2 years old. Pneumococcal pneumonia is a form of pneumonia that infects the upper respiratory tract. It can then travel to the blood, lungs, ears or nervous system. It is most dangerous for children under 5 and adults over 65. For Malachi, it resulted in end stage kidney failure. Aside from being on dialysis several times a week, he also had both of his legs amputated below the knee, his left arm amputated below the elbow and several of his digits on his right hand amputated. Initially, Malachi was fit with prostheses after his amputations, but he seldom used them. He was constantly tired and the degree of swelling in his legs was always fluctuating.

In the summer of 2011, 13-year-old Larry Jackson, Jr. of Boothwynn, PA sprained his ankle while playing baseball. It seemed like just a minor injury, but soon afterwards the area around the ankle began to swell. At first his family attributed the puffiness to the sprain, but after a couple weeks of continued swelling they became more concerned and took him to see a podiatrist. After examining Larry, Jr. the doctor was equally concerned and referred him to Dr. Dormans, the chief of orthopedic surgery who specializes in spine and tumor cases. Dr. Dormans diagnosed him with Ewing sarcoma and within a month, he was admitted to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to undergo intensive chemotherapy treatments.