Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • Page 9

For Leukemic Children Parents Buying Time, Hoping By Betty Stevens always tired and always worried, Jim McGrath said. is the only answer and our only source of hope," Sherry Hermida said. The McGraths, 345 West Butler, and the Hermidas, 2440 Washington, each have a child with leukemia. Angela Hermida. has been known to have the disease for eight months.

Rueben McGrath, 5, has had it for two years. Both children are patients of Dr. Rashid A. Al-Rashid, Director of Pediatrics, Hematology and Oncology at the Cancer Research Center at the University of Nebraska Medical School in Omaha. When each of the children started Al-Rashid three-vear chemotherapy program, each was given a 50-50 chance of surviving tor three years.

A Relapse chances were blown last August when he suffered a relapse. just know now going to be a McGrath said. In addition to the twice-monthly trips to Omaha, both children receive intravenous in their Lincoln doctor's offices three times each week. If the blood test reveals a dangerously low blood count, it means another trip to Omaha. Rueben will need a spinal type even, other day in Omaha next week.

Since his relapse Rueben musi have a bone marrow injection in his spine every three months. really McGrath said, of the 25 children who started the three-year program with Rueben, only two or three are Leukemia is a disease of the blood-forming organs It is a disease that takes the lives of more children than any other, and one that strikbs more adults than children. The systems of white blood cells are concerned with fighting infection. In the leukemic patient the overproduction of abnormal white cells disrupts the production of red blood cells and interferes with oxygen transport and clotting In addition, these abnormal white cells are unable to fight infection Extra Safeguards So when the brothers and sisters of a leukemia victim get the measles or flu or even colds, they must go to grandmother's house throughout their illness and recuperation so they infect the leukemic sibling. When you have a child with leukemia, you just never get away from it, Mrs.

Hermida said. If not worrying every minute about happening to the blood count, you are worrying about what the stress is doing to the rest of the family. Or you are worrying about what will happen if gas is rationed, and even a 55 m.p.h. speed limit becomes a real barrier when you have to go to Omaha as often as we do, McGrath said. While of the and Hermidas' medical expenses are covered by insurance and the rest covered by the Crippled Children's Society, there is a great amount of expenses that must be met from out of the families' pocket.

McGrath lost $3,000 in wages last year and drove 20,000 miles transporting Rueben to the Omaha Cancer Research Center. And there are things to buy like distilled drinking water and foods tor a special diet. Raising Money why the two couples are trying to raise $3,000 to give Journal eople Food Supplies in India Critical 10 Friday, January 24, 1975 Rueben McGrath and Angela Hermida are special according to their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jim McGrath and Mr.

and Mrs. Charles Hermida. to the Leukemia Society of America 211 East 43rd, New York, Y. They are doing it by going door-to-door, collecting at shopping centers, pop bottle sales, bake sales, and through radio appeals. The First Lutheran Church, where the Hermidas have their membership is helping I don't know what Mrs.

Hermida said. The fund is being received by Union Bank, 3643 So. 48th. It is to be a part of monies collected in a national radio-thon to be held Feb 8 and 9. While the radio-thon is not expected to be broadcast in this location.

Mrs. Hermida said she hoped the fund-raising effort would generate enough interest to start a Nebraska Chapter of the society. The radio-thon monies will be used for research. A total of 106 scientists supported by the Leukemia Society are working to find a cure for the disease. And that's the source of the and McGraths' hope.

They are trying to buy time because you never know tomorrow, or maybe next week one of those scientists may find a cure for leukemia. hovland swanson I I SUPER SALE! SWEATERS 1G.90 Orig. $30 and $40. Great bulky knit cardigans in new wrap and button styles, and pullovers in tweeds and solid colors. Save now at this special low price, 16.90.

Sportswear Downtown Gateway. Conestoga Mall Grand Island. Last of Five Parts By Joe Gandelman 1975, Chicago Daily News New Delhi Bread arrives in stores here about 11 a.m., and usually sold out in a few hours. is not available," is the way the news is broken to you. So you go to another store, where another frustrated shopkeeper turns up his hands in despair.

As for milk, it is even tougher. It may sell for a rupee a bottle 13c for us, but $1 in purchasing power for the Indian. You can get it cheaper if you have a milk card enabling you to buy from a system. The trouble is, getting a card means battling the excruciatingly slow bureaucracy. There is a waiting list of months, if not years.

(Yes, years. The telephone waiting list stretches to about 10 years in some areas.) given up trying to get a milk card, so 1 buy the more expensive kind. available," which seems to be most of the time, I use condensed milk which many Delhi families do these days. Vegetable oil. a popular cooking item, also is scarce.

One Delhi housewife said she spent four hours one day looking for some, and finally bought it from a shopkeeper at double what oil would normally cost. Roosting Prices Black marketeering like this is common. It's not secret that many shopkeepers have kept goods such as oil to make them seem even scarcer and boost prices. An Indian journalist, who would likely be considered middle class, says that until a year ago I used to eat meat, fish and eggs day. But now I eat vegetables most of the time.

This as boring as it seems, because many Indians vegetarians and Indians' do magic with vegetable dishes. But prices on vegetables, too, have skyrocketed. Lentils, very popular in so many Indian dishes, went up in 1974. Over-all. the cost of living in India rose nearly last year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

This means India had one of the world's worst cases of inflation. (In the United States, prices went up They rose about in Great Britain, in France and in West Germany.) A typical upper-middle-class family in New Delhi spends almost 80 of its income on food. But it generally does a lot of entertaining. A government division part of the urban lower middle class, will make about 500 rupees a month. Most of it will go for food.

Still, he is fairly well off because he gets a housing allowance of 75 rupees of his pay. Sometimes he gets a rent-free house. Life is more difficult for urban workers in the private sector A family making the same amount of money as the government clerk spends about 30'; on housing, nearly all of the rest on food. There is little left for entertainment, clothing and education. Fortunately, India has some good public schools.

These city families aren't eating well, but they the ones who are hungry. It is the people who grow the food 50 million landless peasants who are the real victims, the living dead. They get from $7 to $32 a year for their toil, not enough to buy the grains and vegetables their labor produces. Every day, if they are strong enough, they line up at gruel kitchens the government has set up in the suffering areas, getting their meager rations of kichari a watery, green boiled cereal. The ones too weak to walk to the kitchens probably will die.

Every two weeks each starving family is given 8.8 pounds of free grain, about two-thirds of the subsistence level for one person. Often this must feed families of eight or nine or more. Lack of Food In all, about a third of India's 600 million are afflicted with malnutrition. A Ford Foundation study found that more than half of all Indian children suffer from anemia, early stages of blindness or other forms of energy loss all because they get enough to eat. India's plight has many roots.

A combination of floods and drought destroyed crops. The price oi fertilizer has tripled since 1971, largely because of oil prices and fertilizer is essential to the high-yield strains of rice and wheat. The government has been reluctant to let foreign investors develop badiv needed fertilizer plants and offshore oil potential. But the major cause of the crisis is population. India managed to double its food production in the last 25 years, but population also doubled in that period It will double again in 25 years, if the current birth rate prevails.

Gray Panthers To Meet younger persons working against the problems related to aging. According to convenor Jane Kidwell, Gray Panthers from Omaha will present organizational procedures and working goals. The fight against agism in an organized manner will come to Lincoln Saturday when the Gray Panthers meet at 1:30 p.m. at Commonplace, 333 No. 14th St.

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