Julia Wagner, 13
Osteosarcoma
The art of Karate provides many benefits to the human body and
spirit. If Julia Wagner is any testament, strength and maturity are
certainly some of those benefits.
The young martial artist is not only
fighting osteosarcoma, a rare cancer that develops in bone tissue,
but she also has adopted another Texas Children’s Hospital
osteosarcoma patient, Ainsley Garza, as a little sister.
She willingly tells Ainsley and anyone
else her story.
It was two days before school ended for
the summer and the then 12-year-old Julia could not have been more
excited. She was planning how to spend her vacation and those plans
definitely included karate — her passion. It was during one of those
summer karate classes that Julia’s leg suddenly gave out. Her
instructor assumed a muscle spasm or simple fatigue, but shortly
thereafter she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in that same leg.
Doctors gave Julia a shocking option. They
could amputate her leg from the hip down.
“I thought about letting them amputate,”
Julia confides, “Because the possibility of continuing karate would
still exist, and karate is my life.” But in the end she just wasn’t
comfortable with settling for “a possibility” and decided to take a
chance. Doctors operated, replacing portions of the bone in her leg
and knee. No amputation was needed.
It was Julia’s decision to step out on
faith and be strong enough to live with the results that has gotten
her this far. Maybe her strength comes from family, prayer, karate
or the desire to be a role model for other children like Ainsley.
But for whatever reason, it is evident that Julia is nothing less
than a brave girl who isn’t going to stop fighting any time soon.
“Cancer didn’t change me—it made me,” she
said. Therefore, something beautiful was born from such an ugly
illness.
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patient stories.
