Help Jules Fight Cancer To Fly Again

My sister is Julia Peacock, Jules, to most of her close friends and loved ones. She is the most true and individual person I know. She never sugarcoats anything. She is the type of person that people are easily drawn to. If she cares about you, you know it and she tries hard to make those in her life feel loved and respected. She worked in the construction industry for over 20 years. Once her sons became adults and moved out, she chose to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a Delta flight attendant. A feat not many 44 year olds would take on. She moved out of the comfort zone of her small hometown of Goldsboro, NC to Brooklyn, NY rented an apartment there with another flight attendant and began the jet-setting stylish lifestyle that suits her personality perfectly! For three short years, she traveled the world, flying for Delta, meeting new people, making new friendships and enlightening the lives of those she met everywhere. On Wednesday, July 12, 2017, my sister went to see an ENT in Atlanta for what she thought was a persistent sinus infection that hadn't responded to antibiotics. This was not what my family considers abnormal for her as she has suffered from allergies and sinus infections all her life. An x-ray was performed of her sinus cavities and because my sister is a talker, her head moved and the x-ray technician saw something that troubled him. He called in a doctor and before 7 pm EDT, the doctors determined that she had a baseball sized tumor in her right frontal lobe. It was surreal and all of it was happening so fast! They started prepping her for emergency surgery almost immediately. Luckily they didn't have an ER available that night, which gave my mother time to fly with Julia's youngest son down to Atlanta to be with her. On Thursday, July 13, after almost 3 hours in surgery, the doctors told my mother that they were able to get the whole tumor, indicating that it was most likely malignant, however testing to be sure might not be complete until the next week. We knew that her team of doctors probably had in their mind the diagnosis before we heard it. These are men and women who do this everyday, but we all were on pins and needles all weekend wondering and worrying about what it might be. On Monday, July 17 we learned that my sister had the mother of all brain cancers, glioblastoma. What the heck?? None of us could even pronounce it, much less spell it, but look it up we did. Let me advise anyone reading this, don't do that. You'll lose sleep and precious time. It's bad. It's not curable, but we hope with every fiber that her lifespan is much longer than what is written on Google. We hope and pray that she is with the best team of doctors that will get her into every trial out there currently being used to treat this monster. She is special and an individual. I hope that they find an immunotherapy course of treatment that will make her the next medical miracle. The hometown hero that survives this. Meanwhile, she begins standard treatment of 6 weeks of radiation and 6 months of chemo. We have spoken with two patients that we have been put in contact with who have given us a heads up on what's next and what we can expect. Most of it is typical: hair loss, fatigue and then the scary ones: imbalance, instability, forgetfulness, slurred speech. Our family is spread out all over the world and every member is as individual and independent as anyone in one family can be, but we all share the same faith that Julia's steadfast resolve and attitude that this cancer will not get the best of her. What we also all agree on is that she's going to need help from strangers. For obvious reasons, she will not be released for work until after her initial treatments and she is required to maintain her apartment in NY because when she does return, she will still be based out of that area. Her first hospital bill showed up before she arrived home. $113K and that was just the stay alone. We expect more from all the different doctors she saw while at Piedmont. In addition, we know that her chemo is over $1000 a month. Her insurance will not cover everything that she is responsible for and we are asking for help to get through this burden towards healing and back in the sky on a Delta plane as soon as she can. That's where she wants to be and that's where she shines the brightest. Simply saying "thank you" to all of you reading this is not enough. It will never be enough. But knowing that you are helping a mother and grandmother through the most difficult thing she may ever face in her short 47 years is humbling. Our family is so grateful and thankful for everyone reading and sharing this. We will be forever in your debt and will strive to pay it forward in our own lives.