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Surviving Childhood Cancer

CHICAGO (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Thanks to advancements in medicine, an overwhelming majority of kids with cancer live through the ordeal -- but their worries don't stop after they hear the word "remission." The powerful treatments that killed the disease in the first place can haunt them later in life.

As Julia Stepenske watches her babies grow, she can only hope they have an easier childhood than she did.

"It was a stage 3 by the time I was diagnosed the first time, so it was everywhere except my bone marrow," Stepenske told Ivanhoe.

At 15, she was diagnosed with lymphoma. Intensive chemotherapy helped her beat the disease, and Stepenske thought she was in the clear.

"You hit the 15-year mark, I should be cancer-free and not have to be worry about this," she said.

But Stepenske had plenty to worry about. Nineteen years after her first diagnosis and pregnant with her second daughter, her cancer came back with a vengeance.

About 80 percent of kids with cancer live, but more than 60 percent face serious health problems later in life. Doctors say the chemotherapy and radiation that saves kids' lives has a toxic boomerang effect. Years later, it can lead to more cancer, brain tumors, early heart attacks and depression.

"And that risk actually increases with time," Aarati Didwania, M.D., an Internal Medicine Specialist at Northwestern University in Chicago, Ill., told Ivanhoe.

Northwestern University runs a program dedicated to educating adult survivors and monitoring their unique health risks. They're called STARs, or Survivors Taking Action and Responsibility. The medical staff with the STAR program tracks down patients' health records from 10, 20 and even 30 years ago to figure out what they were exposed to as kids. These details can reveal the health problems that likely lie ahead and the screenings that could protect them. There are only about a handful of programs like STAR across the country.

"[It involves] figuring out what medication doses, all of that they were exposed to and coming up with a unique treatment plan for each individual," Dr. Didwania said.

Stepenske delivered a healthy baby and had a successful stem cell transplant, but she can't let her guard down.

"That fear is always going to be in the back of my head," she said.

She's a young mother who's determined to beat her disease … again.

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