Tabaitha Steward has come to expect the averted eyes and downcast glances when she works to raise awareness about childhood cancer.
It’s not a topic many people want to consider, as they stroll through a county fair or other local event and pass one of Steward’s tables. It wasn’t something she considered much herself, before her daughter Hailey was diagnosed with leukemia in October 2012.
“Like anything else, unless it hits you, you stop paying attention to it,” Steward, of Bethel, said.
Hailey Steward was among more than 700 Maine children diagnosed with cancer between 2003 and 2014, according to new federal data. The numbers provide one of the most comprehensive state-level looks at pediatric cancer rates in recent memory.
To read the rest of “Kids in Maine are more likely to get cancer, and no one really knows why,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer Jackie Farwell, please follow this link to the BDN online.
