When your 5 -year -old child has all leukemia

What do you say to a 5 -year -old child when he has everything? You remain simple. For Julie Phillips, this means telling her daughter, Blakeleigh, that she is sick and will be in the hospital for a while.

However, as a mother, nothing feels simple. He brought his daughter for a high fever. To find out that Blakeleigh, cancer is “heartbreaking.”

Forward quickly to today, and Julie exploded with gratitude for the health of her daughter. The team at UVA Health Children’s ensured that Blakeleigh felt comfortable and not afraid while undergoing treatment. Everyone involved feels positive and hopes that Blakeleigh will be better and better. Watch the story for more.

Julie Phillips: Blakeleigh is very smart. He is very smart. He … he’s a person. He never met strangers.

Emily Moses, MD: So I first met Blakeleigh, and he was treated because he had repeated fever, and we didn’t know why.

Julie Phillips: So, they have done every test under the sun. My father and I stayed every night. We never left him.

Emily Moses, MD: Our general pediatric team actually conducts a very broad examination for infection. We are not really found anything, so we go ahead and, … the diagnostic thing you do is a bone marrow biopsy to find the leukemia cells. And we did that.

Julie Phillips: We lived here for 2 weeks before they learned that she suffered from leukemia. We came here with high fever and came out with cancer … like … heartbreaking.

Emily Moses, MD: So, patients who have all, leukemia cells, where it is made in the bone marrow, the crowd of normal cells made there. So when the bone marrow cannot make red blood cells and platelets, then you have symptoms of low red blood cells, so anemia.

Julie Phillips: She is 5 years old, so she really doesn’t understand. All, you know, we can say is, you know, “You are sick and we have to be in the hospital for a while, and you have to take medicine for a while.” I mean, they made him feel safe here. He, you know, he is not afraid to come here to do his treatment. They … they make it easier.

Whitney Perdue, RN: Happy to see Blakeleigh and see him coming to the clinic and coming and hugging me.

Emily Moses, MD: She did it very well with treatment. We still see them every month for the first year, and we will see their lives, for life.

Whitney Perdue, RN: The fact that he continues to come for the lab examination and we do all the follow -up, it’s all positive. So it will be less because we see it. And that’s a good thing.

Julie Phillips: Hopefully, we only have 3 months of treatment. We prayed us there and …. it would be that. Seeing it, you won’t know anything wrong with him. He is like a normal child.