Kimberly

Kim was diagnosed with AML Leukemia on July 22, 2009, just after she finished high school. She'd been feeling well, just showing a few bruises when she went to Primary Childrens Medical Center for a heart surgery to fix a relatively minor condition she's had since she was born. A blood test before the surgery showed that her blood had been completely taken over by the cancer. They admitted her that day and began treatment right away. She went through five long rounds of chemotherapy, doing relatively well, with the exception of one infection that led to a very scary stay in the Pediatric ICU. She spent almost all of that time in the hospital, with just a few breaks to go home. By the end of March 2010 she was allowed to go home for good- officially in remission! She was so excited to finally go to USU Fall semester, and got strait A's in all of her classes! Psychology, Humanities, Family Finance and ANATOMY. Not a week after finals, at a regular check up at PCMC, her blood tests showed that her cancer was back. And thus began round two- Kim's goal was to make it to a bone marrow transplant. We had found a donor, so all that was left was to get her in remission once more. After three rounds of chemotherapy, her body was no longer strong enough to keep fighting, no matter that her spirit was. She will always be with us. 7:48 pm, March 31, 2011

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Hi Everyone... Christmas still isn't here yet, but we're hoping it will be within the next week or so!
Today we found out that one of the things that has been giving Kim so much pain over this past month has been kidney stones. Her left side hurt her a lot around when she was in the intensive care unit, and they think that is when she started passing them. We didn't realize this until today, though, when she finally got the first (and rather large) one out of her system. We will know more tomorrow, but she is of course hoping that she has no more to pass. That was one benefit of being so drugged and sedated in the PICU- she missed a lot of the pain, or at least can't remember it well now... but I can remember how much it hurt her those first few days she was there. So of course, I'm hoping she's through it as well.
Her blood counts are quite high now, but her platelets are very low. I didn't know this, but fevers kill them like none other. She basically has none, and has to get transfusions every day.
Because her ANC is high enough, they do let her go wherever she likes in the hospital, if she wears a mask. She's made a few trips around, but, as always, can't do very much because it wears her out so quickly. She went down to the PICU yesterday to visit the doctors and nurses who took care of her. They really like to see patients who are doing better. Today she tried to go down to the quick sacrament meeting they have in the building, but got too tired and dizzy to make it.
Things are still very slow, and we don't know exactly when Kim might come home, or when they will start her on her next round of treatment, but she is still doing just a little bit better every day... and I can't tell you how happy it makes me :)
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