Everyone at the hospital knows me as a huge and vocal sports fan. So when the Milwaukee Bucks qualified for the playoffs this year, I had to do something to celebrate with the patients I see in the MACC Fund Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders every day.

Check out my video to see what I did. I did this to give our patients a chance to laugh, have fun and be part of the excitement that comes with having our home team in the playoffs. I did it to raise awareness about the upcoming Miracle Marathon, which impacts the resources I have available as our team at Children’s Hospital provides care for these wonderful children.

What would you do? Would you:

• Listen to 96.5 WKLH May 26-28?
• Pledge your donation at chw.org/miraclemarathon?
• Text 4CHW to 85944 for a small donation?
• Spread the word to your family and friends?

Learn more at chw.org/miraclemarathon.

-David Margolis, MD, program director, Blood and Marrow Transplant.

Our son Leo told us he had a headache three days in a row upon waking up. My husband, a family practice physician, told me that children don’t have headaches and on day three, had Leo go for a CT scan. Our world turned around when we saw a tumor that was one-third the size of the back of his brain. It needed to be taken out immediately.

Sept. 2, 2009, was when our nightmare began. Leo underwent a seven-hour surgery. The surgeon came out after just a few hours to tell us that the frozen section of Leo’s tumor revealed that he had medulloblastoma. This type of brain tumor only affects 500 children per year. Our Leo had gone from a healthy boy starting school to a boy who could no longer turn over in bed due to weakness and lack of coordination caused by the tumor.

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Next Monday, Aug. 24, Discovery Health Channel will air a “Mystery Diagnosis” episode about one of our patients. Claire Mantey was diagnosed here at Children’s with a rare condition called lymphangiomatosis. The film crew spent several days at our hospital last winter, interviewing our physicians and recreating how Claire was diagnosed. The program airs at 9 p.m. We hope you’ll tune in.

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