Team Jr #fightcancer

Hi, I'm Jessica and I created this page in support for my dear nephew, Junior (Jr), and his family. If you are visiting this page, my family and I appreciate you so much for reading Jr's story...

On April 27th, a couple weeks after his 12th birthday, Jr went to the doctor's office for a regular check up/follow up and had blood work done. Little did our family know that would be the day our lives forever changed.

While Jr and his family were having dinner that evening, just like every other evening, they received a call from the doctor's office. Jr's blood work was abnormal and his parents were informed to take him to Valley Children's Hospital in Madera. It was there that the doctors told Jr's dad that Jr has B-cell Leukemia, a type of blood cancer, and his dad had to do the difficult task of informing Jr, Jr's mom and the rest of the family. As you could imagine, it was absolutely devastating, overwhelming, and no words can really describe the pain upon learning this diagnosis come upon our family, my nephew. If you yourself have nieces or nephews, or even a close friend’s child that you see as one, then you can imagine the pain as these children become like our own. We see them grow, form bonds, we play with them, and we wish all good things for them always.

Shortly after, on May 1st, Jr started his induction period of chemotherapy that involved an inpatient stay at the hospital. Doctor's estimated his time period would be 3-4 weeks being that there are no complications, however, that was not the case and Jr's total time was 6 weeks. Jr went through a number of complications such as pancreatitis, feeding through IV (Peripheral parenteral feeding), stomach pain, and high blood pressure which caused seizures and prompted ICU transfer.

At the end of his 6 week stay, we received the wonderful God send news that Jr achieved remission! We cried tears of joys learning the news. The fight is not over however, little do many know, such as myself, despite achieving remission chemotherapy treatments continue for 2 more years to ensure cancer cells do not grow back.

Chemotherapy treatments over the next two years include either once a week infusions at the clinic, followed by injections at home or can be 3-4 night stays at the hospital while receiving 24 hour chemotherapy infusion. Gradually overtime the frequency of treatments will decrease but for the near future this is the schedule Jr will need to undergo for his treatment.

About Jr: He is quite the artist! He enjoys creating characters, sketching, drawing and of course video games just like many 12 year olds. His favorite is Zelda. He has a sister and two brothers, along with mom and dad. He has slowly returned to himself, smiling, tell jokes, but has had some negative effects from his chemotherapy which we hope are temporary such as weakness in the ankles causing foot drop, low endurance, fatigue, headaches, etc.

We ask you to pray for Jr and our family and if you have the means to do so, your generous donation would allow his family to focus on his recovery while they adapt to their new reality. Your donation would alleviate expense that could be but not limited to:

Again, I thank you so much for coming to this page and reading Jr's story. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to read his story, or listening to me, or any of our family members talk about Jr and what he has gone through. That itself is healing for us. I catch myself sometimes during the day being remind by reality that this is happening, and still in disbelief that my sweet nephew is going through this.

Jr loves hearing from others and if you'd like to reach out to him personally, send him a card, or a message, please send me a message. Along with myself, his mom, and dad, we will add updates on this page as often as possible and keep you all updated.

With much love,

Jessica