To raise awareness of the unique issues facing teens living with cancer, each year the first week of April is designated as National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week. According to Vital Options, young adults are still aspiring to actualize their goals and dreams when cancer stops them from moving forward. Young adults facing cancer and serious illness often feel isolated as healthy friends are off living their lives. Living with cancer presents challenges to relationships, body image, self esteem, marriage, family, fertility and pregnancy, education, and employment. The threat of early death for young adults is profound, as they were just starting out into a life of their own not yet lived. How do you face the possibility of losing something before you had a chance to call it your own? In addition, many young adults have no health insurance and are often delayed in their diagnosis or not taken seriously as potential cancer patients. Some fast facts about young adults and cancer are:

• More than 65,000 young adults in their 20's and 30's are diagnosed with cancer each year.
• Cancer is the leading disease killer among 20 to 39 year olds.
• Young adults have had less survival improvement than either younger or older cancer patients.
• Progress made in cancer treatment has bypassed young adults
• Young adults have the lowest participation rates in clinical trials.

Vital Options, LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance, Mothers Supporting Daughters with Breast Cancer, Planet Cancer, SAMFund, Jimmy Teens TV, and the Teenage Cancer Trust are some of the organizations and programs designed to meet the special needs of young adults with cancer. If you know a young adult with cancer, take a moment to pass along information on the resources listed here.