After finishing her career at St Scholastica, and then ending her ten years of service on the Mandeville City Council, Zella Walker along with her husband, David, eagerly anticipated their retirement and the chance to focus their time and energies on fun and family; specifically their newest granddaughter, Sadie.

The timing was perfect. Sadie’s moms, Sarah and Julia,  had just left their west coast lives to come back east and start new careers and be closer to family. When Sadie and the girls moved into an apartment in Brooklyn, NY, Zella and David were there to welcome them and celebrate Sadie’s second birthday. 

While David busied himself with projects for the apartment and Sadie’s new room, Sadie and her “Zee-Zee” got acquainted with her city and new surroundings.  Council meetings and courtrooms were replaced by plans for summer visits filled with nature walks, flower picking and lightning bug collections.

Tests have confirmed that Sadie has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) type B-precursor.  She has already started chemo with an injection into her spine. For the first 5 weeks her treatment will look something like this: daily oral chemo meds every 8 hours, a weekly intravenous chemo treatment, a monthly intramuscular treatment and intermittent bone marrow aspirations and spinal taps. This is the ‘Induction Phase’ and the aim is to kill the leukemic cells in the blood and the bone marrow.

Not the summer that was planned; certainly not a summer any sweet, little girl deserves.

With the demands of Sadies treatment schedule and care, both of Sadie’s parents have taken a temporary leave-of-absence from their new jobs, substantially reducing their income. They will be trying to resume work, but the cost of trying to keep up an apartment in Brooklyn while commuting with Sadie for treatment at Manhatten’s NYU Hospital, combined with all the related expenses makes the emotional and financial burden they face substantial and nearly incalcuable.

Through these efforts and by the generosity of caring, compassionate people, we hope to ease that burden and bring some sunshine into a dark and difficult time for this young family.