An end-of-year gift to Upstate Golisano Children's Hospital today will support pediatric cancer research and specialized support to kids and families struggling with the disease. Paige’s Butterfly Run is held every June and the organization presented $210,000.
Paige was diagnosed with cancer while completing the end of first grade in 1993 and lost her fight one year later. Her father Chris Arnold wants to make patients and families going through the same tragedy as comfortable as possible.
“I am most impacted personally by the family assistance programs and the programs that make the kids’ lives a little nicer and better, and helps the families through this very difficult time. We’ve been there and we know how difficult it can be.”
Arnold also appreciates helping to support ongoing research. His late daughter underwent a bone marrow transplant that was intended to help fend off her disease. Since her death, treatment has improved.
“There has been a drug that’s come out. It came out about five years after Paige died actually that’s great treatment for her particular type of leukemia. So bone marrow transplant isn’t necessary for most people now with C-M-L, the leukemia she had. Too late for Paige, but not too late for others.”
Golisano’s Dr. Melanie Comito describes how the drug Arnold referenced is now stopping the disease from advancing.
We always knew with her cancer, there was a genetic change. And then people figured out the mechanism of that disease and eventually made a targeted drug that if you give that drug, it turns off that entire mechanism of the disease. And the disorder that Paige had is treated totally different in this day and age.”
Paige’s Butterfly Run has raised more than $2.5-million since establishing in 1996. Several events are held throughout the year in addition to the run that’s held on the first Saturday in June. Visit PBrun.org.
