Almost 13,000 children under age 21 in the United States are diagnosed with cancer every year, and approximately one-fourth of them will not survive the disease, according to the American Childhood Cancer Organization.

September marks National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. The mission of National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is “to put a spotlight on the types of cancer that largely affect children, survivorship issues, and — importantly — to help raise funds for research and family support,” according to the organization.

We asked two local children who suffered from cancer to share their stories and the stories of their family members who helped them fight the disease.

Katie Hollingsworth

Katie Hollingsworth was 14 years old when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Hollingsworth, who lives outside of Eldorado, was diagnosed with acute myelocytic leukemia, a form of leukemia that is not common in children and has 40 percent survival odds, according to Dayton Children’s Medical Center. She was in the eighth grade.

“Really, because I was a teenager, mainly I was like, I don’t want to lose my hair,” she said. “Then, it really hit me. Oh my goodness, I had cancer. I could die.”

Hollingsworth had just celebrated her 14th birthday in December 2009 when she began to feel sick. Doctors at first thought she had a cold or the flu. Then, the teenager started getting worse. On the second day of school after Christmas break, she couldn’t get out of bed.

Her family doctor though she might have mononucleosis and sent her to a hospital in Richmond. It was there that doctors discovered her white blood cell count was abnormal. Hollingsworth was sent to Dayton Children’s. There, she and her family found out she had cancer.

“Finding out your child has cancer turns your whole world upside down,” said Samantha Alcorn, Hollingsworth’s mother. “It is devastating. No one wants to hear their child has a fatal disease. … The protocol for the treatment of AML requires so much chemotherapy that many of the children just cannot survive the treatment. But you can’t think about that. As the parent, you become focused on how to fix it, the treatment plan, what can be done to save them. You find out how strong you really are. You become a warrior with them in this life and death fight. You become the advocate for your child’s care. The only focus in your life is saving your child.”

Dayton Children’s is part of the Children’s Oncology Group and follows nationally approved protocols for cancer treatment. Hollingsworth and her parents agreed to participate in a Children’s Oncology Group clinical trial during which she underwent five rounds of chemotherapy, one each month, beginning in January 2010. The teenager was able to go home for two days in February, one week in March, one week in April and four days in May, and spent the rest of her time living at Dayton Children’s.

Chemotherapy destroys cancer cells, but it also can damage healthy cells, leaving a person susceptible to infections.

After her fifth round of chemotherapy, Hollingsworth went into septic shock, a condition that occurs when an infection leads to life-threatening low blood pressure, and she developed pneumonia. She was unable to breathe on her own, and was put on a ventilator. Then, her kidneys stopped, and she gained 40 pounds of fluid in about two days. Her lungs were at risk of being crushed. The ICU doctors told Hollingsworth’s family she wasn’t going to make it.

After undergoing dialysis to treat her kidney failure and fighting through another rare disease, against all odds, Hollingsworth’s health began to improve. At the end of September 2010, she came home for good.

“Kate had a day in the beginning of her treatment when she said she wasn’t sure if she could do it,” Alcorn said. “We talked about it, how hard it was going to be and the trials she would face, and she decided that quitting was not an option. She never said again that she wasn’t sure. She made up her mind that day she would survive, no other options allowed. Watching her pull through the septic shock and multiple organ failure at the end of her treatment was … watching a miracle. … The doctors told us twice there was no hope; they had not seen a child as sick as she was actually pull through. But they didn’t know my Kate or my God.”

Because Hollingsworth was a part of the COG clinical trial, changes have been made to the type of chemotherapy she received. Patients now receive four rounds of the treatment and avoid that fifth round which caused Hollingsworth so many problems.

Once home, Hollingsworth underwent physical therapy to learn to walk again, and had to have blood tests done every day. Now, she goes to Dayton Children’s once every three months.

The teenager said cancer made her grow up fast.

“It really matures you, really quickly,” she said of cancer. “You don’t think the same as other teenagers. Other teenagers don’t think about dying. … They’re worried about boys.”

Hollingsworth, now 16, is a junior at National Trail High School in New Paris, and she is in remission. She got her driver’s license this year. She wants to be a nurse practitioner.

The thought of the cancer coming back is always in the back of her mother’s mind.

“But you go on with life and plan for the future; you can’t let it control your life,” Alcorn said. ” And once you’ve been through the cancer battle, you know what matters in life, and what doesn’t. Perception is much clearer. I now have a tremendous amount of patience that I did not have before. I do not have ‘bad’ days. Every day that you can go home and hug your child is a good day.”

To learn more about Hollingsworth, go to www.caringbridge.org/visit/KatieHollingsworth.

Josh Mack

Josh Mack of Liberty Township was 7 years old when he was diagnosed with cancer.

Josh was diagnosed on Feb. 26, 2011, four days before his 8th birthday. He had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of cancer in children, according to the National Cancer Institute. A recent study shows that children with ALL have a survival rate of more than 90 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.

From the end of December 2010 through January 2011, Josh suffered from high fevers, which persisted despite doctors’ diagnoses that he was suffering from some kind of viral infection that would pass.

“I finally said, ‘This is it. There is something more going on,’” said Andrea Mack, Josh’s mother.

Andrea Mack took her son to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where after several tests, Josh was diagnosed with cancer.

“This isn’t real,” Andrea Mack said of her first thoughts following her son’s diagnosis. “You see the stories on TV. You see the gifts to the leukemia foundation in the stores. You also know the stories of the children that didn’t make it. It was just devastating. We had been so hopeful that this was going to be something real simple, and we could just walk out of the hospital shortly. I thought I was going to lose the only child I have. It was really frightening.”

Josh said he found out he had cancer while in a playroom at Cincinnati Children’s.

“Well, at that time, I was in the playroom, so that thought (his diagnosis) was in the back of my head,” Josh said. “So I really didn’t think about it, but I thought that if I had leukemia, would I have to stay in the hospital for my whole life? That’s pretty much all. … I wasn’t scared.”

Josh’s 8th birthday party was held in Cincinnati Children’s. Doctors and nurses attended, wearing party hats, along with some of Josh’s adult family members.

The 8-year-old underwent a month and a half of chemotherapy treatment with steroids, beginning in February 2011. Andrea Mack said the treatment resulted in fatigue, and some weight gain and hair loss for him, too.

“He declared in the hospital, ‘I am not losing all of my hair,’” Andrea Mack said of Josh, and he didn’t.

Josh said chemotherapy made him feel “tired and unhappy.”

“I missed being outside,” he said. ” … Part of it was fun, and part of it wasn’t. The part that was fun was going to the play room and seeing everybody that I liked in the playroom. The part that I didn’t like was that I had to get stuck a lot and take medicine.”

Once Josh was permitted to go home in March 2011, he had to return to Cincinnati Children’s from the end of May 2011 to the beginning of August 2011 every three weeks to receive more chemotherapy treatments. Each time, he was hospitalized for three to four days.

Josh, now 9 years old and in the fourth grade at Woodland Elementary in Liberty Township, is in remission. He is a Cub Scout and plays flag football.

Josh currently is taking oral chemotherapy treatments at home. He goes to Cincinnati Children’s monthly for treatments to keep him from developing pneumonia, and at at scheduled times, he still receives spinal chemotherapy treatments at the hospital. Josh has experienced several side effects as a result of his chemotherapy treatments. He takes medicine for his stomach and develops cold sores easily, too.

The 9-year-old goes to school most days now. He missed his first day of school and had to be hospitalized last year after developing pneumonia. Josh wanted to play tackle football, but can’t because of the port in his chest.

“To watch your child cry, and say, ‘I want to be normal; I want to be like everybody else,’ it’s hard,” Andrea Mack said.

Josh will continue to be treated for three years to prevent his cancer from returning.

Andrea Mack said more needs to be done to prevent and cure childhood cancer.

“There is a child diagnosed probably every hour, every day, in this country (with cancer),” she said. “We’ve got to figure out what we can do to change it. And in this journey, I have met people whose child lost the battle, and that’s hard, hard to see. We cannot close our eyes. We have to continue to figure out what can we do, how can we make the treatment less invasive, how can we make it more comfortable for a child of this age. … We have to find out some ways … to prevent it, and once (that) happens, cure it. The reason my child has such a good diagnosis is people did research. Not so long ago, his diagnosis would have meant he wouldn’t be here with me today. … I can still hug my little boy.”

To learn more about Josh, go to YouTube.com, and watch the Cincinnati Children’s video titled “Tell Me a Story: Talk Show Dream Comes True.”