When U Pray

Please read below as Angela Bowman share how she fought like a girl with her beautiful angel Amauri… 🎀🎀
Hello, my name is Angela Bowman and in July of 2010 my daughter Amauri Jones was diagnosed with Large B-Cell Lymphoma. It took a while for us to realize that Amauri was sick because she was such a vibrant little girl. If it was not for the fact that Amauri’s belly was the size of a little basketball, we would have never known that she was sick with Cancer. She received her treatment at the Children Hospital at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

​This came as a total shock for my family and I. We had dealt with a family member battling cancer, but not a child, so this was very devastating for us. Amauri was only 3 at the time of her diagnosis, so all she had an understanding of was that she was sick, doctors were going to make her better, but she had to lose her hair in the process. She was a very brave little girl, because she was okay with that as long as her hair was going to grow back. I knew from that moment that I had no choice but to be as strong and brave as she was.
​It was going to take about 6 months for Amauri to fight her battle, but there was hope that at the end, she would be cancer free. As I watched my daughter go through her treatments, it became a little easier to cope with because she was so strong to be so small and battling something so big. Even though we were in the hospital for six months, she did everything any other 3 year old would do. She made friends, did a lot of art and crafts, and she also meet a lot of important people from the University of Michigan. Amauri was so full of life during this time, I had no choice but to be as strong as her, and at the end of her treatment, we were excited to know that she had won her battle.
​Amauri was cancer free for about a year, in April of 2012, she was diagnosed with Leukemia during a routine checkup. This again took me for a total shock because she showed no symptoms, her 5th birthday was 4 days away, and during her doctor appointment I was offered a position at Chrysler through email. I was more upset this time because Amauri was doing so good and our lives seemed to be going so much better. When I had to break the news to Amauri that we weren’t going back home for a while, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Because she was in school, making friends, and had just been through so much, but my baby girl handled it like a Champ!
​This treatment was a little different from the first round. After three months of treatment, the Leukemia was in remission but Amauri had to have a Bone Marrow transplant in order to make sure the cancer did not continue to return. In July she was blessed with a match Bone Marrow donor, and my family was super excited as none of us was a match. 
​ During all Amauri treatments you would have never known that she was battling cancer or even had just went through a transplant. Amauri’s body rejected the first transplant, so her donor donated again for her in September, but before her body could accept the marrow, she came down with pneumonia. My happy, sassy, full of life baby, now just slept 21 hours of the day. As bad as I hurt watching my baby fight and not be able to help her was the hardest thing as a parent I ever had to do.
On October 13, 2012, Amauri l won the ultimate victory over Cancer. I prayed for her healing and God said “don’t worry I’ll take over from here.” This was the hardest day of not only my life, but our whole family lives as well. We knew Amauri had fought a great fight and was now in a better place. As little as she was, she impacted so many lives, and her memory will forever live on. Amauri most definitely “Fought like a Girl!”