The stories of courageous kids that you'll read about on this website will touch your heart.  Please read about the family that you are helping during their time of need.

We give children with life-threatening illnesses a Prayer Blankie, and we will send your child encouraging cards and/or gifts by POSTAL MAIL!  You will also be added to our Prayer Chain where all of our members will be praying for you and your child.
Please send us your information and your story to sgfyi2x2@gmail.com

INFO NEEDED TO SUBMIT CHILD.

Summary of what we need:

Child's Personal Website, Mailbox & Biography 

Child's Picture  and Diagnosis

Privacy Disclaimer & Terms and Conditions Form will be sent to you.

 We will  have one family that we will sponsor until we have donated $5000 to the family. If you would like to be one of the families we sponsor, or if you know of a family, please send us your letter and story to  Sharing Gratitude Family Support, 107  River Birch Lane, Medina, TN.Once you have signed up we will send your child a Prayer Blankie.Once a family has received $5000.00, a new family will be helped; you can be rotated back in if there is not another family that is in need.
 

Please meet our first family we are sponsoring:

Kinsee Whiteaker Medina, TN    www.caringbridge.org/kinseewhiteaker

 Through a mothers eyes: June 9, 2009 was the single most devastating day of my life.  My 8 year old daughter, Hannah Kinsee Whiteaker was diagnosed with leukemia.  She was taken to the doctor with a sore throat.  When Dr. Maley at the Children’s Clinic in Jackson, TN looked her over, he decided to do some blood work.  He said they had never seen blood that looked like hers.  We were told she had leukemia.  We needed to go home and pack a bag and get her to St. Jude in Memphis as soon as possible.

I was able to contain myself while she was with me.  Her Dad took her with him and I fell apart.  I have never been so frightened and felt so out of control.  I felt like my head was in a fog and I could not concentrate.  We had no idea what was going to happen.  We literally had to live moment to moment just to hold it together.

On the ride to St. Jude, Dr. Patrick Campbell called me to see about what time we were expected to arrive.  When we got there, there were staff members waiting for us.  They took her straight to ICU and started to work on her.  Her white blood cell count was 350,000.  Normal is 5,000-10,000.  Her white blood cells were taking over and she had almost no red blood cells or platelets left.  Her blood was like water.  She had a femoral line inserted into her leg and she was hooked up to a machine that works sort of like a dialysis machine.  It cleared out some of the white blood cells to prevent other complications like stroke or shut down of major organs. 

The oncologists told us she had ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia).  We were told it is the best cancer to have and the most treatable.  If she had to have cancer it is the best kind to have.  The next day, they said that after much more investigation by pathologists, she did have ALL but she had a more rare, more difficult form of it that is more difficult to treat.  Her diagnosis is Early T-Cell ALL.  They have only recently begun to treat this type of cancer differently than normal ALL.  They could not give us a true idea of the percentage of cure rate.  Since they had treated kids with Early T-Cell the same as with normal ALL, the rates would scare us they said.