My Essential Question

I would like to learn through an assessment of research: Which treatments do doctors use to help cure or treat cancers in pediatrics?

Why did you select this as your essential question? What excites you most about finding the answer to this essential question? Do you feel that this question accurately reflects a desire/need that you have to find out more about this topic?

I selected this as my essential question because cancer in children evokes my desire to want to learn about it, as well as other diseases or illnesses that affect children. I really desire to learn as much as I can about diseases in children, especially cancer because of the way it can affect their life as well as the lives around them. The thing that excites me the most is being able to see how doctors nowadays treat cancer in children and later on in life be able to compare it to how those treatments evolve, if they do. Also, just being able to understand more about how treatments affect a child or help the cancer in a child’s body excites me as well, because learning how diseases and their treatments work vastly interests me. I do believe that this topic reflects a desire I have to find out more about this topic. I believe this because I have such an interest in cancer and how it works, especially in an adolescent body. I have already posed questions to my mentor to see what information I could find out, thus leading me to learn that Leukemia is a cancer that is found more commonly in children. Due to my questioning of my mentor, I also found out that in order to find more information on cancers in children that I need to do some research on my own. This realization led me to be deeply interested in researching and learning more about the topic on my own. I have also been very interested in child cancers since I was younger doing things for St. Jude’s to help children with cancer. Through my own desires and exposures previously to knowing about cancer in children, I have thus felt led to want to expand my knowledge about the topic.

"The Many Colors of Poop"

I mentor in a pediatric office where I am enjoying everything I can about young people, especially babies. In babies there are different things that a parent must watch for. One of the things that should be watched in a baby is the color of their feces. In an book written by Laura A. Jana, MD, and Jennifer Shu, MD, the many colors of feces and what to watch out for is described.
Once a baby has bowel movements enough to get rid of the tarry meconium, acceptable feces colors are yellow, brown, and even sometimes green. For a baby who breast feeds, the normal color is mustardy yellow. For babies who take formula, the color is yellow-tan with hints of green. A changing in color is not uncommon and will happen when the baby is introduced to new things such as solid foods or experience a snotty nose cold. New introductions can cause a change in a baby's feces. However, red, black, and white are colors that you would want to take to the attention of your pediatrician. When red presents itself, it can mean that blood is in the baby's feces. This should not cause a parent to panic because during delivery it is possible for the baby to swallow some blood and it present itself later; however, this is something that should be brought to the doctors attention. If the feces is black this can mean that there is old blood due to blood turning from red to black over time. However, it must be remembered that seeing black feces does not apply to a babies first meconium bowel movements because seeing black and tarry feces is fully expected. If the feces is white, it should be brought to a doctors attention as soon as possible because this could mean an underlying liver problem which could be very bad. Although change in a babies feces is fully expected, there is need to watch it in case there is a bad change in the color that could tell you vital information about your babies health.

I really thought that reading this excerpt was interesting because even though I have been mentoring with a pediatrician, I did not know that color changes comes along with an introduction of something new, nor did I know what a color change meant. Due to my interest in learning about babies, how they work, and their diseases/illnesses, I think that this information helped to further my knowledge.

Works Cited:
Jana, Laura A., and Jennifer Shu. "The Many Colors of Poop: Book Excerpt from the Authors of Heading Home with Your Newborn | Simply Being Mommy." Simply Being Mommy | Texas Mommy Blogger. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. .