Claire Masikewich had the seemingly normal storybook tale of a healthy young family of four. Until the fateful day of May 26, 2023.

Sloane Masikewich, 5 and half years old and the youngest sibling to sister Indy, wasn't feeling very well one may long weekend. Her signs and symptoms didn't seem too serious for anybody to fuss about, but she kept on getting worse including fever, body aches and pains. No big deal right?

What started as a routine 811 call to Alberta Health Link, then a visit to Alberta Children's Hospital, it soon became apparent there was much more going on inside of little Sloane's body than met the eye.

She was devastatingly diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma the next day, a rare and high risk form of cancer among children. There are only 1500 cases annually in Canada, or up to 237 in Alberta alone. She has had a long road of surgeries, chemo, radiation, stem cell transplants and immunotherapy since this time.

The question coming to mind now for the family is, why does there seem to be a lack of funding directly forwarded to pediatrics for research into childhood cancer, and to what risk are we leaving our children given these extreme doses to beat these diseases. Though Sloane is in remission a year later almost to the day, she is not out of the woods yet.

Claire has become an extremely vocal voice in the childhood advocacy space starting up campaigns such as "Strong Like Sloane", and "Heartbeats for Hope"

In this episode we tackle the entire journey for the Masikewich family.

For more information on Sloane and her journey through Strong Mum on instagram follow:

@therealclairem

To donate to the Strong Like Sloane Campaign, where a large contingent of runners run on behalf of Sloane, 182 to be exact, and where Sloane was going to run a year previous to being diagnosed:

https://raceroster.com/events/2024/74775/servus-calgary-marathon-2024/pledge/team/594604

Intro/Outro Tunes: Back On the Farm-Shoot the Lights Out

https://stlo.rocks/

Episode Sponsor: Lonestar Directional Drilling:

https://lonestardirectional.com/

Location: Studio Luma, Calgary, Alberta Canada:

https://www.studiolumayyc.com/