By Myrica Hawker

The issue touching many hearts and minds throughout Utah recently is who should make medical decisions for 12-year-old Parker Jensen- -- his parents or the state of Utah.

The parents' rights are drawing a lot of support and sympathy from citizens of Utah, especially because many Utahns can see a little of themselves and their families in the Jensen family. And there is no doubt that Parker's parents love him and want what is best for him, so much so that they are willing to become fugitives for "kidnapping" their child. Of course they fear making the wrong decision, and no parent wants to make a decision for their child that would result in something as painful and rough as chemotherapy can be. But is there a chance that their overwhelming love and fear is too strong for them to think clearly?

In the end, a decision does have to be made. And the urgency of this decision cannot be undermined. Parker Jensen was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma by doctors at Primary Children's Medical Center. Ewing's sarcoma is a form of bone cancer that can also develop in soft tissues, according to the Mayo Clinic' Web site. It is most prevalent in whites under age 20.

Dr. Joe Simone, a pediatric oncologist, told the Deseret Morning News that chemotherapy has been proven through years of treating children with this disease to be the only treatment that is effective in curing it. He said the cancer cannot just be removed as a tumor because cancerous cells can also invade normal cells with Ewing's. Rates of survival after chemotherapy treatment are around 70 percent.

Childhood cancers usually respond well to chemotherapy because their cells grow quickly, and most types of chemotherapy specifically affect rapidly growing cells, reports the Mayo Clinic.

"They're [the Jensens] playing with fire, these people. Every cancer is worse if it comes back. It's much harder to cure. It doesn't mean it's impossible, if it's caught in a very early relapse phase. It's maybe half (the cure rate) what it was before," Simone told the News.

Though you wouldn't know it for all the press this issue has received, this isn't the first time a treatment has been ordered and the state has threatened to step in. Carrie Moore, a writer for the Deseret Morning News, recently wrote about when her son got cancer 12 years ago. She, too, was scared of chemotherapy and the possible side effects, even though the doctors didn't give her son a good prognosis without it. They were still trying to make the right decision for their son when they were told, "Your son will be treated. If you choose to forgo treatment, the state will take custody of him, and he will be treated." They felt stunned and angered at the threat, but decided not to get the second opinion that was offered and admitted their son the next day because "the clock was ticking."

They, too, thought their son "looked and acted so normal," but looks can be deceiving. The cancer can be taking over these victims' bodies while they are still feeling, acting, appearing normal. Moore's son beat Ewing's sarcoma, as did David Hargraves' son who was treated with chemotherapy after his diagnosis and the recommendation of this treatment at Primary Children's Medical Center in 1999.

"At some point I don't understand the Jensens," Hargraves told the News. "I don't understand how anyone could wait and prolong something that could be getting worse."

Parker Jensen's tissue sample has been tested by three laboratories, all of which confirmed the diagnosis of Ewing's sarcoma, according to a guardian ad litem's report.

"If it's been looked at by two different labs, I'd be pretty comfortable with the diagnosis," Dr. William H. Meyer, a pediatric oncologist at the University of Oklahoma Health Services Center, told the News.

There is no doubt that chemotherapy can be a very rough road because of the possible side effects, which the Mayo Clinic's Web site lists as appetite loss, variations in growth and increased susceptibility to infections. But no one could argue that death and the end of all the opportunities life offers is better. Parker, no doubt, wants every chance he can get to beat this disease and live his life to its fullest. And his parents don't want to have to suffer for the rest of their lives with the agony of making the wrong decision... so wrong that it costs their son's life.

So, before it is too late, listen to the medical experts, who are called experts for a reason, and those who have traveled this road before and had to make the same decisions. Don't let love and fear impede making a decision as difficult, consequential and timely as this.