Implementation Period: December 2022 to June 2023

Grant given by SCBPMM for this project: $7,000

The majority of our warriors are sick with leukemia. A certain percent are suffering from other forms of childhood cancer, like Wilms tumor, Burkitt lymphoma, teratoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, brain tumor, lymphoma, medullo blastoma, osteo sarcoma, or yolksac tumor, which are mostly hard tumors or “bukol” in Filipino. Treatment for these tumors is varied, mostly a combination of chemotherapy to reduce the tumors and/or radiation targeting the remaining tumor if not removed by chemo therapy. Radiation is being done in a specialized clinic available in only 3 hospitals in Lipa. By coordinating with the pediatric doctors and the cancer institutes of these hospitals, we are able to get discounts for our cancer warriors. However, the treatment is quite expensive. Each case is studied thru CT Scan Planning to address the tumor directly and minimize the effect on surrounding areas. And then it is determined how many radiation sessions are needed to completely remove the tumor. The number of sessions range from 20 to 25 to fully remove the tumor.

This added treatment expense is what we are trying to subsidize thru the funds from the SCBPMM grant. At this time, we are able to start to subsidize the radiation treatment of 13 warriors under Operation Bukol. We have already allocated the whole amount of the grant to the needs of these warriors with tumors.

We have learned through the course of this year that the children with cancerous tumors are treated differently from those with leukemia. They are given chemotherapy to reduce or hopefully remove the tumors. However, in some cases (13 kids in CWFIBats), tumors remain even after chemo and have to be subjected to radiation. To jump start the process, we subsidize or help out in the CT Planning and maybe in the subsequent radiations if the families cannot find other sources of funds for the treatment.

Operation Bukol