Promoting Childhood Literacy & Preventing Ovarian Cancer?

Providing funding for ovarian cancer early detection research AND childhood literacy programs, the Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation is a very special organization honoring a very special human being.

With a daughter (holding the umbrella) at risk of ovarian cancer because of an inherited genetic mutation and with me being a children’s book illustrator, I support the AKR Foundation wholeheartedly.

With National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month coming up in September, it’s a perfect time to support the 2024 Yellow Umbrella Campaign.

Please learn more about Amy and the AKR Foundation at: www.amykrouserosenthalfoundation.org

Please join me in supporting the Foundation’s annual Yellow Umbrella Campaign here: 
www.amykrouserosenthalfoundation.org/campaign

Total Unique BRCA Variants Charted

“It’s probably not that simple.” And “BRCA mutations are rare.” That is what I was told by my late wife’s doctor when my wife was first diagnosed with cancer. I was pushing for my wife to have genetic testing because of her family’s cancer history and a second-degree relative’s recently-provided positive BRCA2 mutation report. Her doctor was hesitant but eventually agreed to refer my wife for testing.

It was that simple.

My wife had inherited a BRCA2 mutation (which our daughter also inherited) and was diagnosed with Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Syndrome. Had her relative’s report not been kept unshared for seven years, it would have saved her life.

And “rare.”?

This infographic represents only BRCA genes. To date, there are about 50 other genes associated with hereditary cancer syndromes. And that’s just the number of genes, not the total number of mutations possible.

Look at the chart and do the math. It will be eye-opening.

Please share. Knowledge is power. Hereditary cancer can be prevented.

 

The Thinking Cap & EducatorClips.com

As a freelance illustrator, sometimes something you create takes on a life of its own* and you see it being used all over the place. With it getting to be back-to-school time, I thought I’d share this.

This particular piece of art was created many years ago for the Discovery (Channel) Education Clip Art Gallery. I often see it (and rip-offs of it) as well as a lot of the hundreds of other pieces of clip art from the Gallery I created. I even saw some of my clip art being used at the chemotherapy infusion center where my late wife was being treated for metastatic hereditary cancer. Which, I might add, was actually heartbreaking on many levels.

Way back in 1999, there were basically no free online clip art galleries for educators, so Discovery licensed my whimsical collection for exclusive use. I had originally created much of the clip art for my elementary school teacher wife to use in the classroom and in newsletters to parents. Discovery used my clip art collection for twenty years until the contract expired and they changed their focus. However, since I still owned all rights to the artwork, I created my own website where the art can be downloaded for use by educators gratis at www.EducatorClips.com. 

If you want to learn more about the history of my clip art, please visit the site. And if you ever want to see how others are using the posted image, just do a “thinking cap” image web search.

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*As you might imagine, my Thinking Cap art is just one of numerous creations to take on lives of their own. And sometimes it can be very frustrating. My Chartpak International Typeface Competition winner, La Fiesta (aka Tijuana), is an example of that.