Kate S. - Quilt Finished in 2008

Born: September 12, 1994

Illness: Leukemia (ALL)

Kate's Story

Written by Kate's mom Candy in July 2007

Kate was born "normal" and healthy in Minnesota. She has one older sister, Sammi, who was four years old when Kate was born. Before Kate's first birthday we moved into the house we live in now and she had been here all her life. We live in a very small town of about 600 people.

Kate started kindergarten when she was five and through her elementary years was involved in activities like volleyball, knowledge bowl and basketball. In fifth grade she joined the traveling basketball team, traveling track team and was also very active in snowboarding during the winters.

Around Halloween of her sixth grade year, she started experiencing hip pain. We all assumed this was due to basketball and that she had perhaps strained a muscle. When it was still hurting a few weeks later, we took her to the doctor. The doctors could not find anything wrong with the muscles, but did say that she had some swelling in her hip joint and put her on high dose ibuprofen for the swelling and codeine for the pain.

Over Thanksgiving we took a family trip to Wisconsin. During that week, the pain increased so much that we ended up in an emergency room in WI. There they checked her for strep, meningitis, lyme disease, and some other things that would cause the inflammation. They put her on some antibiotics and more pain killers. When we got back home, we returned to the doctor. This time they suggested rheumatoid arthritis. They took her off the antibiotics and gave her more pain killers and set her up to see a specialist for arthritis. The appointment was for February and it was currently December.

All this time, Kate was missing many, many days of school and was getting no relief from the pain in her hip that was spreading up into her back and down to her foot. We even tried acupuncture.

New Year's Eve 2006, we ended up back in the emergency room, followed by an appointment with an orthopedist and another appointment at her regular doctor. Finally, someone moved her appointment with the specialist up a month for January 12th, 2007. We went to the University of Minnesota to see the pediatric rheumatologist and what we found was that she did not have arthritis, but she had Leukemia!!

The rheumatologist called in two pediatric oncologists to meet with us yet that night. We were given a whirlwind of information and description of treatment and prognosis, etc. Then we were allowed to leave for 2 days. This was a Friday night, and we checked back into the hospital to begin treatment on Sunday afternoon. That Saturday that we were home was very sad. Kate played her basketball game with her team and then went snowboarding with friends. This would be her last opportunity for quite some time. We called our relatives and friends, packed our bags, and returned to begin treatment.

Since that time, Kate has made it through the Induction phase, Consolidation phase, and is now in the Interim Maintenance phase. In a few weeks she starts Delayed Intensification. She has had countless lumbar punctures, quite a few bone marrow biopsies, surgery for the placement of her port, and endless rounds of chemotherapy. She has lost most of her hair, all of her normal activities, and a few friends.

But Kate is a very tough girl and very positive. She has gone through the hospital stays, weeks at the Ronald McDonald house, blood transfusions and trips to the clinic much better than I think I would have. Not a lot of complaining and very little crying.

About a month ago (written July 2007) Kate had a reaction to one of her chemotherapy medicines (PEG Asparagines). She went into anaphylactic shock and the ambulance took her to ICU for the night. Since then, her clinic has been working hard to get her a replacement drug from France.

It has been a scary road for us all, but we have faith and hope. A couple times when I was angry and tired of the cancer and then feeling guilty because what Kate was dealing with was so much more than what I am dealing with, she reminded me that "God gave us this for whatever reason. It's okay to get sad and angry. We'd be stupid if we didn't. But God will get us through it okay".