Suffolk News-Herald

While suffering from a brain tumor can be described as almost anything but pleasant, 10-year-old Lizzie Dorschel said that while she was undergoing chemotherapy in early 2001, the staff at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters did everything in their power to make it so.

&uot;It didn’t feel good, that’s for sure,&uot; says Lizzie, who was diagnosed with a germanoma brain tumor in January 2001. &uot;But the nurses were really nice, and some people in a group called ‘Child Life’ helped me out. They played games with all of us, and did art projects. If I was going to have a procedure done, they helped me with a routine.&uot; For example, if the Nansemond-Suffolk Academy student was going to get a shot, the Child Life staff helped her to remember to take three deep breaths and turn her head toward her mother Mary Alice’s shoulder.

However, the room itself was an issue, Mary Alice recalls. &uot;It seemed like the rooms were small and the beds were really big,&uot; she says.

When her son Brian was receiving treatment for lymphocytic leukemia, Holland resident Angela Perry noticed the same thing. &uot;It was really nice to be near the kids, because everyone got to know each other,&uot; remembers Perry. &uot;But they didn’t have much space; if one kid got sick, they had to take him completely out of the room and isolate him until he felt better.&uot;

Thankfully, both children are in remission. And with the ‘Round Up’ program that the CHKD has been performing in conjunction with Hampton Roads Farm Fresh supermarkets, the size problem will be solved quickly.

The fundraiser, which has raised roughly $900,000 in its three years of existence, continues until March 29. It allows Farm Fresh customers to &uot;round up&uot; their purchases to the next available dollar, or add additional dollars. The money raised in the pledges, working toward a goal of $1 million, will be used to renovate existing CHKD facilities on the hospital’s first floor and create a new and expanded outpatient treatment center, including an infusion therapy area.

CHKD offers the only dedicated pediatric oncology program in the region and some of the most critical treatments children receive are infusion services, including chemotherapy, blood and blood product administration, pain management and antibiotics administration.

&uot;Money raised by Farm Fresh will allow us to nearly double the size of our existing outpatient cancer treatment areas and consolidate them to provide services in an environment that is both comforting and state-of-the-art,&uot; said CHKD president and CEO Jim Dahling. &uot;For children who spend several hours a day and sometimes several days a week undergoing these treatments, this new facility will make a tremendous difference to them and their families.&uot;