Common Questions and Answers
Q. How can I tell if my child may have a blood disorder or cancer?
A. If your child has fever, is pale and/or tired all the time, bruises easily, has unusual swelling, or has symptoms of ear or viral infections, especially if a fever lasts a week to 10 days, it’s always best to bring any symptoms like these to your pediatrician’s attention.
Q. How serious is a blood disorder for my child? Is it going to hurt a lot?
Occasionally bleeding or other conditions can resolve spontaneously, for example, after an infection when platelet function or production was affected. Your pediatrician will refer you to us when any condition involves your child’s blood cells. Other conditions can be very serious. Things like cancer and sickle cell anemia are chronic, ongoing conditions that can also be life threatening.
Q. What should we expect if we bring our child to your division?
A. First, you’ll know that you have come to someone who’s really concerned about what your child is facing—who wants to listen to what you have to say. You’ll have every opportunity to have all your questions addressed. When you’re coming to see an oncologist, you know it has to do with cancer and you naturally feel anxious. We know the issues and how to help your child so that the outcome is the best possible.
Q. Will my child be in much pain? What about surgery and other difficult procedures?
We work very closely with therapists who help kids understand what’s happening. Our play therapists help kids know more about what they’re going through—with dolls, for example, using a mock IV, syringe, etc. to show the kids the various devices they might encounter. The idea is to give them a sense of things. We have a team of expert therapists and a special pain management team—all of us contribute to helping your child understand and ensuring that any procedure is done in the safest and most pain-free manner. We want children to free of fear about any procedure so that they are able to accept it calmly if we must do it again.
Q. How do I know my child will get the most advanced care?
A. At Rainbow an important part of our program is in cancer research, with a strong emphasis on developing and testing new agents. Approved therapies are available for most pediatric malignancies, but sometimes, a disease may not respond well to conventional approaches.
We are constantly working in collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry, the Federal Government, even the FDA to identify and test new agents and bring new treatment options to children as fast as possible. New drugs are initially tested with adults—we want to know more before we try things with kids. But many things can be done in safe way. We can tell you about investigational or clinical trials that are available if standard therapies are not working well. You have the option to participate if you and your child would like to help us make medicines better.