The following article discuses his battle and how you can easily help support Nicks' battle just by golfing. Thanks for reading the article below and to Alyson, Nick and their family please know that you are always with us in our thoughts and you all are amazing people!
Re-Poster with permission of connectionnewspapers.com
By Bonnie Hobbs
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Original article: CLICK HERE
A bright, well-rounded young man, 20-year-old Nick Franca appears to have a bright future ahead of him. The 2009 graduate of Centreville High has a warm, close-knit family, a steady girlfriend and a semester of college under his belt.
He also has neuroblastoma – the same, incurable childhood cancer that 3-year-old Chantilly toddler Rachel D'Andrea is battling. And just like Rachel, he's currently hospitalized in New York and receiving treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
The families of both Rachel and Nick – as well as other local families in the same situation – hope doctors can get their children's cancers under control enough so they can receive a course of treatment with a particular antibody that has the potential to help them. But it's extremely expensive to produce, so the families have joined together to raise the money they need.
Toward that end, they're holding the Band of Parents Charity Golf Tournament, Monday, Sept. 20, at Bristow Manor Golf Club in Bristow. Registration is at 11 a.m., with the shotgun start at noon, followed by dinner, awards and a raffle. The cost is $150/player and includes golf, cart and food.
Although the event has so far received a good response, sponsors and foursomes are still urgently needed. Band of Parents (www.bandofparents.org) is a nonprofit, so all donations are tax-deductible.
Participants must sign up by Friday, Sept. 10. For sponsorship information, plus registration forms for the tournament, contact Amber Yost at amberdahser@yahoo.com or 703-594-2031.
FRIENDLY AND outgoing, Nick was an active teen who enjoyed golfing, himself, as well as fishing and water skiing. But in August 2005, doctors discovered a malignant neuroblastoma on his spine. "The average age of diagnosis for this is 2," said his mom, Caryn. "So no one could imagine a 15 1/2-year-old would have it."
Her son had no symptoms, at all, yet there it was, turning his world upside down. Suddenly, said Franca, "This handsome, vigorous boy with a gentle nature was plunged into the nightmare of a lethal, childhood cancer."
Nick, who'd never even had a serious illness, was in Stage 4 cancer that had invaded his bones, bone marrow and lymph nodes. His parents had learned from friend Meg Crossett — whose daughter Rachel died of neuroblastoma in 2001 at age 6 — that the most advanced treatment for it is at Sloan-Kettering.
"So Nick and I lived in a Ronald McDonald House in New York from August 2005 to May 2006 so he could be treated there," said Caryn Franca. "We gave up everything to save his life, and he endured chemotherapy, radiation and another surgery."
Once in remission, Nick participated in a clinical trial unique to Sloan Kettering, using a 3F8 mouse antibody to teach his body to fight any microscopic disease left behind. Nick had 11 rounds of it, from April 2006 to May 2007, and it enabled him to stay cancer-free for a year.
But his disease came back in May 2007, and Sloan's lead researcher, Dr. Nai-Kong Cheung, told parents of neuroblastoma patients that, if the antibody could instead come from human sources, treatment with it might be more successful and could be made available to more children. That way, explained Franca, doctors might be able to genetically alter this antibody to match the DNA of Nick and other children.
The problem, she said, is that neuroblastoma is considered an "orphan" cancer, so it receives little funding. "There are fewer than 600 cases a year in the U.S.," said Franca. "But the Washington, D.C., area seems to have a larger-than-normal diagnosis rate. Right now, there are over 30 children here in active treatment."
So when the parents asked what they could do, Cheung told them to try to raise money. About $3 million is needed to get the improved antibody into production.
"But we don't have years to wait," said Franca. "So about 60 families formed a group called Band of Parents to raise the money."
FOR AWHILE, Nick was able to keep his disease at bay and happily go on with his life. After high-school graduation, he attended Lynchburg College for a semester, met his girlfriend Kelly Embley, of Virginia Run – and then relapsed again.
Now, once more, he finds himself in a hospital far from home. His parents and Westfield High grad Kelly have stayed by his side, and friends from Centreville and Clifton – where the Francas have lived for more than 30 years – have traveled to New York to donate the platelets and white blood cells that Nick needs.
He's currently receiving chemotherapy – which also takes a toll on his body, and it's been wrenching for his loved ones to see him so ill. Kelly went home to Radford for a couple days to pack up her apartment and, when she returned, Nick was in the throes of a fever.
Last Monday, Aug. 9, Franca wrote in her son's CaringBridge journal: "Kelly has had a rough few days adjusting to seeing Nick so weak. This is hard for all of us, but to have found the love of your life and then to watch him suffer so is just too much to take in, sometimes. When you go home and come back, the drastic contrast of the two worlds is just so hard. She is so young to be walking this unbelievable path, and yet she does, as hard as it is. Nick squeezes her hand and says, ‘You are my medicine.’"
Still, each new day brings a new battle and a new problem or complication for him to overcome. Yet Nick does his best to stay positive and upbeat. Franca does, too, although sometimes her frustration – coupled with a mother’s desperate yearning for her child to get better – spills out.
On Saturday, Aug. 14, she wrote, "I need Nick to gain weight, get strong, get this damn cancer under control. We need miracles!" But always aware that others are also waging this same fight, she added, "Many other warriors besides us are in need of miracles. New treatments are the only hope for many of us."
And that's where the upcoming golf tournament comes in. Franca hopes it’ll yield $20,000 to $30,000 toward the cause. "I am blown away by the people stepping up to sponsor that don't even really know Nick," she said. "Now we need the players to send in their forms."
"I can't tell you where my head would be if I didn’t believe that the treatment Band of Parents is funding is actually going to be available to Nick, as an option, in the next six months," continued Franca. "From here to there is very tough, but so is Nick. He shows us every day just how much he wants to live his life. May everyone have Nick's desire to fight just to have a life. Thanks to everyone for everything – it keeps us going."
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