2/2/2010 12:21:00 PM
Firefighters climb for a cause
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| Sparrow Holly Davis was featured at a recent basketball game. She is fighting a form of childhood leukemia. |
| | Sparrow Club raises funds for Sisters girl | While firefighters help battle leukemia through a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS), the local Sisters School District Sparrow Club has raised more than $1,000 to help Holly Davis, who is battling Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
"We've raised about $1,400 this year - and we're just getting started, too," said Sparrow Club advisor Sally Taylor-Pillar.
Sparrow Club encourages community service among students, by sponsor pledges of $10 for each hour served. The club has also done a couple of 50/50 raffles at sports games as a form of direct fundraising.
Last week, Chet McConnville won the raffle at a girls basketball game and donated his winnings back to the club, to create a total of about $360.
"A lot of people give anonymously," Taylor-Pillar noted.
More fundraisers are planned. For more information, contact Taylor-Pillar at 541-549-4045, ext. 1018.
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By Jeremy Storton
It's like a mutiny in the body; her red and white blood cells, which are supposed to sustain life, turn, take over and begin to kill. This is essentially what happens inside someone with leukemia. This is what happened last spring inside three-year-old Holly Davis.
Typically one would find this little girl dancing, playing outside or with her brother and sister. But, in March 2009 she began having inexplicable fevers and stopped using her arm, holding it in an imaginary sling. Doctors originally diagnosed and treated her for a shoulder infection. Holly's fevers continued, so her parents, Chad and Darcy Davis, took her to Doernbecher Children's hospital in Portland with an overnight bag "just in case."
They finally returned home a month later.
A bone marrow biopsy revealed she had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or ALL. She was lucky considering that ALL is the lesser of the two forms of leukemia that children typically get.
"ALL is better," says Chad, "because AML (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia) typically needs a bone marrow transplant."
Doernbecher's goal for kids with ALL is for them to be in remission in eight days. Holly received her first chemo treatment the day she was diagnosed.
Doernbecher's Pediatrics Department is one of the most research-active departments in the U.S. according to their Web site. The Davises agreed to participate in their clinical trials because "we want to help things get better for patients in the future."
Day 29 is the day when patients have another bone marrow biopsy that confirms remission if the first eight days of chemo were successful. Doctors don't use the "cure" word until five years after successful treatments, but Holly's treatments were successful and her parents could take her home.
She still has to visit Doernbecher's in Portland often and continue to be treated. Since her immune system has been knocked down, Holly's parents keep the household as clean as possible and think twice about public interaction. She has had several recurrences of fevers and has been treated at the ER in Bend, but for now she is still in remission and again enjoys playing with her 5-year-old sister, Greta, and her 16-month-old brother, Spencer.
Holly also was recently chosen to be the Sparrow for the Sisters schools program that raises funds for families with children in medical crisis.
In addition to help from the Sparrow Club (see sidebar), local firefighters are pitching in to the fight.
This year the Columbia Center in Seattle is again hosting the 19th annual Firefighter Stair Climb in Seattle on March 7. It is a firefighter-only event that supports the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS), which funds research, education and patient services to help people like the Davises.
The Columbia Center is the second-tallest building west of the Mississippi and firefighters dressed in turnouts and breathing from their SCBA airpacks will climb 70 floors, or 1,311 steps. This event draws 1,500 firefighters from all over the world to prove their mettle and support the LLS.
Local firefighters from the Sisters-Camp Sherman and Black Butte Fire Departments have teamed up and are currently training and raising funds for this event. Each firefighter will have to wear approximately 50 pounds of turnouts and breathe through their SCBA throughout the event.
The fastest climbers can reach the top in as little as 11 minutes, while the average is between 20 and 30 minutes. Their training includes building muscle strength, cardio endurance as well as getting used to stress from heat, weight and having to breathe through a mask. Suffering for up to 30 minutes, however, is nothing compared to what Holly and her parents have endured.
How to help:
You can help by donating money to the Sisters-Black Butte Stairclimb Team (SBBST) at South Valley Bank, next to Ray's, or at either fire department. You can also donate online by going to www.firefighterstairclimb.org and click on "Donate Now" and donate under the team name.
The SBBST will also have fundraisers where folks can talk to the Stairclimb team and root them on while they train in full gear. Fundraisers are set for Ray's Food Place February 7 and 14 from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Sisters Movie House on Wednesday, February 17 and Three Creeks Brewing Co. on Friday, February 26. Times for the movie house and the brewery fundraisers will be posted soon.
For non-firefighters interested in taking on the challenge, March 21 is the civilian version, called Big Climb. Visit www.bigclimb.org for more information.
For more information on the diseases, donating, and the events themselves, visit www.leukemia-lymphoma.org.
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