Dr. Tebbi is a retired University of South Florida professor
and medical doctor He is internationally recognized for
care of patients. After retiring, he turned his efforts to fulltime
research in the 1Voice laboratory on Hoover Boulevard
in Tampa.
help fund the problem of pediatric cancer.
“We have a very active legislative committee which travels
to Capitol hill twice a year,” Massolio said. “Our children
and parents testify before Congress and the Senate asking
for more funding for pediatric programs and research. They
are bereaved parents of lost children and children currently
on treatment who share their story.”
“One good thing that came out of DC this year is that
President Trump signed the STAR act which is for pediatric
cancer,” Massolio continued. “It increased the budget for
-
ship, treatment, access to treatment and research. “The good
news,” Massolio said, “is more and more children are surviving,
but there’s a lot of survivorship issues that go on once
they do survive, and there is not a lot of resources for them.”
Academy which is our partnership with the Hillsborough
for children with cancer which should be the model for the
nation.” They are currently seeking a building and hoping the
school could start by the end of this year.
“It is to give pediatric cancer victims a sense of normalcy
in a very abnormal time,” Massolio explained. “They can’t
do sports, or maybe they can’t go to scouts. It’s always can’t,
can’t, can’t, but they should be able to go to school.”
Hospitals will provide classrooms for students on extended
hospital stays, but they are sick children, not cancer
patients and the cancer patients often have compromised
immune systems because of their treatments. For this reason
many stay home and are homeschooled, which causes a new
“If your child is homeschooled, your probably home with
rate, sibling issues, families kind of fall apart and if a child
could go to school, and a mom could work, it would reduce
some of the other factors. It wouldn’t eliminate them, but it
would help reduce some of the things families go through because
they stay home.”
The 1Voice Foundation will celebrate its 10th anniver-
other people dedicated to starting a foundation that focused
One voice speaking out in comfort, practical efforts and research
– a one-stop shop. They also seek to cooperate with
other cancer programs and organizations. “Were really big on
cooperating and were really big on sharing,” Massolio said.
“We work very closely with the medical and social staff at the
Equine Therapy – “Makayla’s Hands on Horses” mission is to help
children grow strong, achieve therapeutic goals and overcome challenges
by engaging them with horses, concentrating on ease, not disease.
main hospitals. They have outpatient clinics that we serve as
well.”
Massolio is a trained pediatric oncology social worker
with advanced degrees concentrating on bereavement. She
with cancer, sickle cell and hemophilia, but the last ten years
she has worked strictly cancer. There is a reason.
really want to work in pediatric oncology because I was a
young woman and I thought, “Ooooh, don’t even want to
think about a children getting cancer, but it drew me, I fell
in love with the kids and I loved my job and then, three years
after I started in pediatric oncology, my own nine year old
son was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” Her son Jay,
was diagnosed nine hours after they found out her dad had
prostate cancer. It was a devastating time. He was diagnosed
recalls as though 20 years had not passed. “You’re like, okay
through – well, you don’t. I often say as hard as it was to sit
FLORIDA WOMEN MAGAZINE 813.682.9364 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018 • 25