LJ Strong
Donation protected
After countless urgent care visits and doctor visits we finally learned at Cook Children's Hospital on the morning of February 16, 2018 that our son Julian "LJ" was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The " C-word". Is this really happening to our baby boy?? Our son has cancer.
LJ is 11 years old and is going on 4 months since his diagnosis. He went into remission March 19. Our journey continues and will probably do so for a couple of years because that is the plan of treatment for this type of cancer.
Before his diagnosis, LJ was a highly active, athletic, fun, loving, played sports, and ate all things sugar kinda kid. He is still fun and loving but due to his illness, our day to day now consists of meds and outpatient clinic visits for chemo and transfusions. He now spends his day sleeping, resting, playing his video games and card playing and puzzles. He has ok days, some rare good days, and a lot of bad sick days. Everyday is hit or miss but we take it day by day no matter what the challenge is.
Summer is here and school is out, and literally the first day of summer we spent our Saturday morning at infusion getting a platelet transfusion. Sunday we ended up back in the ER for what have learned is a bacterial infection, aka sepsis, in his bloodstream. Something we hoped we could avoid but his body did not have the will to fight off that type of bacteria. June 3, 2018 he got admitted to treat the infection and anticipate at least a 10 day stay. His current illness is slowly improving daily and we can not move onto the next phase of treatment until his blood count numbers increase so that his body can handle the next phase. It is not uncommon that this occurs as with any type of chemo treatment, and on our 11 year old boy, it takes a toll on him, us as his parents, his siblings, and our family overall.
As you can imagine a plate full, our plate is overflowing. We have always been a private family, but have learned through this process that it takes a community of support to get through this battle. CO-pays for medications are many and ever-changing as is his health and wellness. The costs are adding up. Commuting to clinic 1-2 days a week to 4 days out of the week and now everyday so that one of us can go home to take care of every day to day things and check on our other daughter and her health and wellness is also a task we manage. Living in the hospital several days, weeks at a time, we as parents have to keep our strength going too. So our food budget increases too. Our cost "of living" in general has become an added stress so if one if just one, either a paid meal or a tank of gas fill up and or assistance with co-pays for medication would be greatly appreciated. So for that we ask that any help will help. It is a lot to ask but we couldn't be more thankful for the thoughts and prayers as we continue on this journey we call #LJstrong. We are warriors, we are fighters, we are strength!!!!!!
LJ is 11 years old and is going on 4 months since his diagnosis. He went into remission March 19. Our journey continues and will probably do so for a couple of years because that is the plan of treatment for this type of cancer.
Before his diagnosis, LJ was a highly active, athletic, fun, loving, played sports, and ate all things sugar kinda kid. He is still fun and loving but due to his illness, our day to day now consists of meds and outpatient clinic visits for chemo and transfusions. He now spends his day sleeping, resting, playing his video games and card playing and puzzles. He has ok days, some rare good days, and a lot of bad sick days. Everyday is hit or miss but we take it day by day no matter what the challenge is.
Summer is here and school is out, and literally the first day of summer we spent our Saturday morning at infusion getting a platelet transfusion. Sunday we ended up back in the ER for what have learned is a bacterial infection, aka sepsis, in his bloodstream. Something we hoped we could avoid but his body did not have the will to fight off that type of bacteria. June 3, 2018 he got admitted to treat the infection and anticipate at least a 10 day stay. His current illness is slowly improving daily and we can not move onto the next phase of treatment until his blood count numbers increase so that his body can handle the next phase. It is not uncommon that this occurs as with any type of chemo treatment, and on our 11 year old boy, it takes a toll on him, us as his parents, his siblings, and our family overall.
As you can imagine a plate full, our plate is overflowing. We have always been a private family, but have learned through this process that it takes a community of support to get through this battle. CO-pays for medications are many and ever-changing as is his health and wellness. The costs are adding up. Commuting to clinic 1-2 days a week to 4 days out of the week and now everyday so that one of us can go home to take care of every day to day things and check on our other daughter and her health and wellness is also a task we manage. Living in the hospital several days, weeks at a time, we as parents have to keep our strength going too. So our food budget increases too. Our cost "of living" in general has become an added stress so if one if just one, either a paid meal or a tank of gas fill up and or assistance with co-pays for medication would be greatly appreciated. So for that we ask that any help will help. It is a lot to ask but we couldn't be more thankful for the thoughts and prayers as we continue on this journey we call #LJstrong. We are warriors, we are fighters, we are strength!!!!!!
Organiser
Juls Be
Organiser
Fort Worth, TX