Julia Garmo is on a hope-filled journey with helpful companions

Every person is moving toward a destination. For the youngest individuals, that end point of travel should disappear beneath the horizon. But a life-threatening illness can twist anyone’s course onto an unknown path.

Welcome to Julia’s journey.

Every person is moving toward a destination. For the youngest individuals, that end point of travel should disappear beneath the horizon. But a life-threatening illness can twist anyone’s course onto an unknown path.

Welcome to Julia’s journey.

Nearly a year ago, Julia, third of five children in the Garmo family, was a happy, active first-grader. Early in the school year, she told her parents that her neck hurt. She began having trouble moving it. And then Julia complained that her throat hurt. Her parents thought she had a stiff neck from playing soccer, one of her favorite sports, or from sleeping awry. 

The diagnosis, though, was Stage 4 neuroblastoma.

Her parents, Anita and David Garmo were devastated once again. Their oldest child, Isaac, at the age of 13 months, received the same diagnosis. This cancer affects about 650 children in the U.S. annually, and every 16 hours a child with neuroblastoma dies. Isaac is now 10. His periodic checkups show that his health is holding steady.

The seasoned traveler may make better plans, although a second time through hard territory is never easier, knowing now what lies ahead. During Isaac’s illness and treatment, the Garmo family relied on their close, extended families, on the tight-knit Chaldean community in East County, and on their faith that God would walk with them. For this second trip battling childhood neuroblastoma, Julia’s journey, the Garmos have reached out for a wider circle of support.

The Garmos created webpages to share Julia’s story. Anita poured out her emotions and the family’s challenges. David shaved his head when treatments were making Julia bald. And one surprising response came from an Arizona family named the Mursets, who had discovered the Garmos’ Facebook page describing Julia’s progress during medical treatments.

The Mursets asked to visit and spend a few hours doing household chores at the Garmos’ El Cajon home. Gregg and Kami Murset and their six children arrived in an RV around noon on Oct. 17, and spent the early afternoon cleaning windows, doing yard work, and planting shrubs and flowers.

This was a second-time-around travel for the Mursets. At the Garmo residence, the Murset family concluded a 10-day whirlwind trip on fall break, visiting 14 cities, driving 2,975 miles, and performing 141 chores. In July over summer break the Murset family traveled upwards of 6,500 miles across the U.S. in their RV, to help families in need and charities, stopping in 25 cities from New York back to their Scottsdale, Arizona, home base. The Mursets call their project “Working Across America: kids doing jobs for charity.”

This time out, Gregg Murset said, he wanted family volunteering efforts closer to home, with more “grassroots outreach,” and more of a person-to-person touch. He said during arrangements for the family’s summer trip eastward, one large charitable group asked for $25,000 to have the charity name emblazoned on the family bus.

“Sometimes, the big charities get in the way,” he said.

The inspiration for the Murset family trip was born out of Gregg Murset’s background as a financial planner, in conjunction with transferring lessons from successful clients’ lives into training in good work and life habits for his children. He created a child-chore-list application called My Job Chart, which parents could use to assign specific tasks with point rewards, monitoring completion of chores by each child for giving out allowances in dollars or credits toward family fun events. During the volunteer road stint, the Murset children received earnings from chores at the end of each day, which they gave back as donations to the charity they had helped.

The Garmo and Murset family members began appreciating each other’s company like longtime friends. Both large families have similar views about life’s responsibilities. Before the Mursets arrived, while sitting in her family room, Anita Garmo said, “It is so important to give back. With technology today, children can get isolated and selfish, so that life is all about them. Helping others is a part of our faith in God, to help the littlest friends.”

David Garmo took off from work early and pulled the children from school.

“I want my kids to see this great lesson,” he said.

Julia is at a good place on her journey today. Her physicians are monitoring a few “spots” on diagnostic imaging. After several chemotherapy sessions locally at Rady Children’s Hospital and a total of four surgeries to remove tumors, two of them at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, her medical condition is considered stable. Other treatments for neuroblastoma include stem cell transplant, radiation, cis-retinoic acid, and immunotherapy. Now seven, Julia has started first grade over again. Her lovely brown hair is growing back.

Grateful for assistance with help around the house from the Mursets, as well as the increased awareness that the visit brings, David and Anita Garmo are requesting further support. Anita is concerned over the costs of natural therapies that are not covered by insurance, including pure, unprocessed foods and nutritional supplements for detoxification and physical recovery after treatments and surgeries. East County residents can help ease the difficulties the Garmos have encountered on this road by donating at www.juliasjourney.org/donation.