Dear friends & family, 7-9-09
Last appointment went great and my blood counts were really high! My cousin Madison went with me. Oh! And I am getting baptized this Sunday!
Love,
Julia

With Julia's brevity, I'll follow up with a little more detail. We started what's called the "intermim maintenance" stage of her treatment on Monday, 7/6. Her counts had improved drastically since the previous Monday, so we were very pleased with that. With this stage of her treatment, we will now be going every 10 days to Atlanta for a 2 month period. Then we will be in "delayed intensification", which is a hard phase of treatment & will be closer to a weekly schedule for 2 months. Then we will be in "maintenance", which will be monthly hospital visits & oral chemo at home. As best we can tell, that's what her schedule looks like, and her treatment should end around July 2011. Her appetite is not very good these days, and she has lost some weight. Her hair is beginning to grow back in on top, but I don't think she will keep it very long. She's been quite achy this week, but has kept good spririts. Sometimes we feel very blessed with Julia's situation when we meet other families with children who are much sicker, but what she is going through is very hard on her little body. Please pray for her complete healing and for her to have no long term problems from all these strong medications. We have so many local friends suffering from some form of cancer right now and many new friends we've met in Atlanta. I'd like to list some of these people if you would like to also pray for them. I'm sure some of you are praying for mutual friends already. As always, thank you for your love, prayers, & words of encouragement.

Thomasville: Michelle Watt, Carmen Devane, Stephannie Murray,Susan Waters, Tommy Williams, Karen Crosby, Debi McHenry
Atlanta: Leland Erickson, Pyper Sellers (also from T'ville),Olivia, Irery, Patrick Brannen (Athens), Ward Wright (Albany), Aniah, Nurses & Doctors who deal with these children daily
Maggie & Stephanie (nurses in Nicaragua now on mission trip)
Families of Maris Barrett & Alexus Woods

I'm sure I've left someone out. I apologize. Thanks again.
Love, Sharon