Carly Laverty is four years old and has cancer. On June 24, 2002 a malignant tumor was removed from her spine and her life was forever changed. But, through all this turmoil, Carly remains Carly! She is bright and funny, wily and wonderful....a "warrior princess", daily battling this truly terrifying disease, mesenchymal chondrosarcoma.

Carly's best friend and playmate is her 6 year old sister, Kelcie. Together they inhabit a world of pink. They are princesses dressing in tulle fairytale gowns and adorning themselves in tiaras, fairy wands and high heel shoes. Secret, giggly meetings in their Barbie tent with all the dolls lined up in various states of dress and undress are a daily occurrence, interrupted only, by the visiting pediatric nurse who administers Carly's GCSF injections.

Carly's parents, Henni and Roy Laverty, strive to keep as normal a household as possible. Prior to Carly's illness, Henni ran a busy in-home day care center and the house was always filled with children. The business had to be closed because of Carly's low resistance to infection. Roy, a service engineer with EMC Corp, has a long commute but spends all of his free time with Henni and his girls. His coworkers and company have been very compassionate and understanding of his situation.

Carly's journey to wellness has just begun. She faces nine chemotherapy sessions (as of August 16th two are done) and seven weeks of proton beam radiation. The chemo sessions alternate between 3 days inpatient and 6 days inpatient. The radiation will be 5 days a week for 7 weeks outpatient. There will be many unscheduled trips to the hospital but with any luck at all in a year from now all Carly's cancer treatments should be over. She is fortunate to live in an area that affords her the best possible medical treatment available. We, her family, are optimistic that her chemotherapy and radiation treatments will cure her of this cancer.

We will take one day at a time and we will worry about tomorrow, tomorrow, and we will enjoy to the fullest every Carly-moment we have!

Receiving news that your child has cancer is devastating, but when the cancer is extremely rare it makes matters worse. Why? Because, there are very little data on successful treatments. When Carly was first diagnosed with cancer there were approximately 80 reported cases of mesenchymal chondrosarcoma. To put things into perspective over 2000 cases of childhood leukemia are reported every year. But, some types of leukemia have a survival rate of about 85%. Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma on the other hand has survival rates varying from 20-30%.

Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma, in a nutshell, is cancer of the cartilage. Mesenchyme are embryonic cells from which cartilage are formed. Chondrosarcoma is a malignant tumor originating from connective tissue. Chondrosarcoma is, in itself, rare, and mesenchymal chondrosarcoma is a subset of chondrosarcoma and thus is even rarer.

Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma is a very aggressive form of cancer that metastasizes (spreads) very quickly, which makes it hard to treat. As with any other cancer if it comes back it's even harder to treat. The treatment is on the aggressive side of the average cancer treatment regimen, which includes several months of chemotherapy. If you are familiar with cancer treatment you know that there are different protocols for treating specific cancers. There is no protocol for mesenchymal chondrosarcoma, so Carly is receiving a modified Ewings sarcoma protocol.

Carly will also be receiving a special form of radiation treatment called proton beam. The proton beam hardware is extremely large and expensive. Currently there are only two in the country, one in California and one in Boston. This radiation therapy is very precise, which is necessary in Carly's case because of the sensitivity of the area were the tumor was located. Because this therapy is so precise there is a long prep time and she cannot move, and since Carly is so young she will have to be sedated for each session.

When a person, especially a child, is afflicted with a terrible sickness friends and family quite often want to offer support and words of encouragement. Years ago the conduit for these were letters, phone calls, and personal visits. Although these are still methods of communication, a new more efficient method of communicating has become available, the Internet.

When we received the devastating news that Carly had cancer we were overwhelmed with the amount of support offered by friends and family. Having worked in the IT and process control sectors since 1987 I thought “Why not have a web page for Carly?”. Henni loved the idea and so I started, but, Carly was the priority, and with each trip to Boston the web site was dropping on the priority list. In the interim I found Children’s Hospital offered their patients web pages through tlcontact.com. These were very basic, but filled the gap until I could get the time to complete Carly’s page.

Immediately after Carly’s diagnosis I started researching the type of cancer that she has. In my research I came across a web site for a boy named Thomas Pacheco. Thomas is also a cancer patient, and actually has the same rare form of cancer as Carly. I told my family about Thomas and they started frequenting his web page and leaving messages for him. Henni’s mother contacted Thomas’s father, Ron. A couple of weeks passed and Ron contacted me regarding Thomas, Carly, and the offer to help in starting a web page for Carly. Henni and I gratefully accepted Ron’s offer.

The benefits of having a page provided by the Touch of Hope Project are numerous. Primarily, Touch of Hope significantly reduces the amount of development work I would do on my own. This means I can spend more time with my family. It also absorbs the cost of hosting the site. Let’s face it, server space, software, and the man-hours to create and maintain a web site can be costly. The Touch of Hope Project allows significantly more freedom in the content, than tlcontact.com. This should make it more enjoyable to view. There are other benefits for visitors as well. You can keep up to date on Carly’s treatment, see recent pictures, and sign the guest book.

Finally I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ron and everyone at the Art for Hope Foundation for the Touch of Hope Project. Ron has made our lives a little easier during this difficult time and we owe him our gratitude. Especially considering his child also has cancer. Carly is actually the first child other than Thomas to benefit from this project. Henni and I invite you to visit the Art for Hope Foundations Touch of Hope Project web site and show your support.

Sincerely,
Roy Laverty