2012 Honored Heroes

      

     
Kim
Wichita Light The Night Honored Hero

Funny how life can change in the blink of an eye.
I was a 32-year-old mother of three wonderful children, a wife of a loving husband, and a Hospitality Manager at Carlos O?Kellys. I was expecting to get my tonsils taken out the next day, due to a year- long battle with Rheumatic Fever. I contacted the doctor?s office, and a last minute blood test revealed that my blood counts were too low for surgery, and I needed to see a hematologist.

On February 7, 2011, I met Dr. Page at the Cancer Center of Kansas. This was a shock to us, as we never even thought about cancer. He did some blood work and wanted me to come back the next day for a biopsy. Shortly after leaving the doctor?s office that day, I received a life-changing phone call, ?Mrs. Stokes, I am so sorry to inform you, but it looks like you have leukemia, and you need to go straight to the hospital?.

I felt as if every last breath of air was taken from me. I couldn?t fight back the tears. I threw the phone at my husband, and out the door I ran. I sat on my cold driveway looking up and down the street. It was like everything was in slow motion. All I could think about was my kids. My husband came out, wrapped his arms around me, and said, ?We got this!?

Off to Wesley Medical Center we went. We were expecting to just stay the night and have a few more tests run. Dr. Page came in that evening and talked to us about my diagnosis. At that time, he confirmed our fears -- I had AML. I started chemo that next day and soon found out that I had a rare form of AML and would need a bone marrow transplant. My brothers were both tested, and one of them was a match. Although most people would think this is very common, it is not very common. Some people wait a very long time or don?t ever find a match. I encourage you all to get the information at www.bethematch.org.

I spent the next month receiving chemotherapy at Wesley Hospital. After about five weeks, my counts returned to a safe level, and I was able to go home. I was finally able to see my kids, after not seeing them for almost a month. Thank God For Skype!

I was scheduled to receive a bone marrow transplant the following month. I returned home and spent as much time as possible with my kids. We had to go to KU Medical Center for the transplant, and we went up there for a consultation. We met with the KU Med transplant team and gained valuable, but scary information. They gave us all the statistical probabilities of the survival rate for my form of AML. We were also informed that the transplant process would be 100 days away from home -- and my kids. That was another hard battle to fight. I remember tucking my kids into bed the night before we left for Kansas City. I remember for a spilt second asking myself if this would be the last time I tucked them in. I had never been so scared in my life!

We left for Kansas City on April 11 at 6:00 a.m. I didn?t want to wake the kids, so I peeked in each of their rooms and blew them a kiss. I kept hoping that this was a bad dream, but I knew it wasn?t. I knew I was about to start the battle of a lifetime.

Over the next nine days, I received chemo, and on April 21, 2011, I received my transplant. We spent about a month in the hospital and another month at the Kansas City Hope Lodge. I was finally blessed enough to be allowed to come home six weeks early -- although the kids still had another month before they could join us.

We had so much support from friends, family, my work, my husband?s work, and even people we didn?t know! When I got home, I knew I wanted to give back. I came across the Light The Night Walk. Although I knew it would be pushing it for me to participate at that time, I was still determined to get a team together.

During the next few months, I worked on recovering with the support of all my friends, family, and LLS. On October 15, 2011, I participated in the Light The Night Walk. Early on in my diagnosis, a friend, who I met along the way (also a fellow transplant survivor) said, ?Positive Thoughts=Positive Outcomes?. We all, as a team, have continued to carry this with us. I am now almost nine months post-transplant and still cancer free. I continue to get stronger every day. I do my best to live in every moment; make sure my kids, husband, friends and family know how important they are to me; and just enjoy life as it is given to me!

Thank you for being our Hero!

 

Alessa
Topeka Light The Night Honored Hero

Alessa?s story, as told by her mother:

Alessa had just turned a year old when the days following her check up started to concern me with her sleeping more than normal. She didn?t want to play or eat, she just wanted to be held. I called the pediatrician to have her take a look at her and they thought that maybe she was anemic with her sleeping so much and wanted to check her out to be sure. After getting her in to see the doctor, she told me that she was really concerned about Alessa. She was thinking two things; either her platelets were out of balance or she had Leukemia!

Needless to say, that was not the answer I was expecting. She said either way, we would know within an hour after we took her to the hospital to get blood drawn and to have a bag packed to get ready to go to Kansas City. By the time we got back home from picking big brother up from preschool and getting everyone home for lunch and naps, my phone rang. Alex (Dad) answered my phone and I could tell by his reaction that it wasn?t platelets. After the call was done and he took down all of the information we needed to get her to Children?s Mercy Hospital, we stood there and cried. What else could we do?

We immediately packed our bags, got her loaded up and headed to Kansas City. I don?t remember the drive as it was all a big blur and we were in total shock. After getting to the hospital, we knew immediately that we were in the right place and that they were going to take excellent care of our little girl.

After 2 ½ long years that seemed to fly by rather slowly, we can now say that she is completely done with her treatment and is back to a normal 4 year old life! We can?t thank the people at Children?s Mercy and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society enough for all of the support they gave us during the most difficult time we had to face in our lives. Thank you!!!

 Thank you for being our Hero!

 

Arianah
Topeka Light The Night Honored Hero

Arianah was diagnosed with ALL on 9/20/10. Here is Arianah?s story, as told by her mother:

We had signed Arianah up for Soccer. She loves to play soccer. It was Saturday and she begged me to not take her to soccer, her legs hurt really badly. We decided not to take her to Soccer and she complained of the pain all day, to a point that we would have to carry her from one end of the house to the other because the pain was to strong in her legs. At that point I decided that Monday morning I would call and get an appointment for her.

Sunday came and she still complained about the pain. Monday finally arrived and I was able to take her to the doctor. She had lost weight and was pail, the doctor stated he couldn?t see anything wrong but he was going to run some tests and see. So they drew blood and ran the tests. I received a phone call Tuesday afternoon from the doctor, he was referring her to a specialist. At that time I did not think much about it, since Arianah has been seen by many specialist. He stated something was not right in her blood. He provided me with the phone number and insisted that I call at once. Well I called as soon as I was off of the phone, the nurse on the other end stated it was the Topeka cancer Center. I nearly fainted, but was able to get her an appointment to be seen that same day at 3:00pm.

I called her father to inform him what was going on. We finally went to the appointment, Arianah, her father, my dad and myself. The specialist confirmed that everything indicated that she has ALL Leukemia but could not completely diagnose her without a bone marrow test. She sent us to KU Med Center.

We were given an appointment for the following day. They kept us over night. I remember that after the procedure was done they sent us to our room. In the afternoon Dr. Kumar, Nurse Practitioner, Students etc came to our room. They had the final test result, it came back positive. My baby girl had cancer. They began o share the process of treatment, the nightmare began. In a minute we went from a happy family to an insecure family. And we still had to give the news to Arianah. I sat down with her to explain what was going on and she took the news like a true champion, her words "Jesus will heal me". We began treatment, surgery, the process to fight this enemy that had invaded our family. We are Happy to announce that Arianah has been in remission, she still has 1 more year of treatment but she has done very well. She is strong and healthy, back to school participating in all activities. She is a Miracle Child. We had our ups and down during the process, she has been hospitalized 3 times because of colds, infections, etc. but is doing GREAT!

Thank you for being our Hero!