Kristin "Kourageous" Katich

The story will air tonight at 5:30 channel 2

I would like to share the following copy of a "gift" we received from Bishop Manogue High School. It touched us deeply...... Dear Kristin, Leslie and Darren, We come to you with good news and a gift from friends and admirers at Bishop Manogue Catholic High School. We are happy to enclose a check in the amount of $1,117.oo. This gift is to help you with the many medical and travel expenses you are incurring. You may wonder how all this came about. Willie Hartman, whom you know is a student at Bishop Manogue, sought to find a way to help Kristin. Through Willie's advocacy, we conducted a special collection yesterday in what we term a "Miracle Minute." For sixty seconds students, teachers and staff made a contribution on behalf of Kristin. We collected the $1,117.00 in that time. Earlier in the week we aired videos on our in-house television system to acquaint the Bishop Manogue family with Kristin. Students from Galena and Manogue collaborated in creating these vi...

Saturday afternoon Neda Iranpour from KTVN, Jamey Hinman(from the leukemia lymphoma society, Jay the camera guy came over to the house to interview Kristin for an upcoming event the Leukemia Lymphoma Society puts on. It is called the Man and Woman of the Year. This campaign is a fund raising competition among individuals in the community. Candidates run in honor of the Boy/Girl of the Year. This happens to be Kristin. Each person nominated campaigns for the LLS society. The kick-off event is this Wednesday and the Grand Finale Gala will follow after the campaigning approximately 8-10 weeks later. The boys are excited about the limo that will pick us up this Wednesday and take us to the Silver Legacy. What a treat for us! So, watch channel 2 tonight at 11:00 and then on Wednesday at 6:00 or 6:30? (I will post the definite time when we know what it is) and 11:00 for the full story . Our trip to Oakland went well. Kristin again cleared her high dose methotrexate in fabulous time and we w...

We just said goodbye to Kristin and Kyle Karrasch as they left for Galena's Prom. Can I have a moment and say how beautiful she looked to me?

Knock, knock. Who's there? Prom. Prom who? Promise you will be careful! This was the little joke we wrote on Kristin's back when she went into surgery for her latest l.p. (lumbar puncture) The whole floor is aware that Kristin has prom this week and they are all pulling for her to be able to go this Saturday. I am so happy to say that it looks like she will be able to! Yes! She mentioned yesterday that she almost feels "normal" today. Her counts are up dramatically after the last two weeks....finally and we were able to begin the next 63 days of her treatment. this is called interim maintenance. During her l.p. she received methotrexate into the spinal fluid, under anesthesia. Later in the day vincristine through her broviac. This is the med that gives her difficulty with her feet, joints, and coordination At 10 p.m. she was give the bad boy... high dose methotrexate through an iv drip over 24 hours. For this she is given lots and lots of fluids and at the...

Dr.Torkelson just left the room. He had a smile on his face and said, "Recovering marrow!" Hot Dog! This is the best news and certainly worth the four days of anxiety. Her marrow is working very hard to recover from all the chemo and fever. Depending on her labs tomorrow, we will either stay or go to Vacaville for a few days. He said that there was a lot of young white blood cells and that her counts should be jumping up quickly. He hinted that if they did, we should just stay because they would be able to start interim maintenance in the next few days.(interim maintenance is the next 63 days of chemo) Prom is coming up on the 12th and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we can get started sooner than later. Later would mean no Prom.......not good! She knows treating her cancer comes first, but that is a big pill to swallow for a seventeen year old! Thank you for all your support and prayers!

I wanted to update everyone on the new developments. The labs always dictate how our day seems to go, so I will begin with them. On the 27th, Kristins ANC was 48. Meaning she was very neutropenic. That is extremely low considering a healthy person's ANC runs around 3000-5000. (this is the absolute neutrophil count..the diease fighting white blood cells that help us fight infection, bacteria, etc.) Kristin has been as low as 220, but never this low. In fact I actually questioned if they were doing the math right! So, she was on total house arrest for the week but had been feeling okay with all things considered. Friday rolled around and her "sore" back progressed to the point that she was tearful throughout the day. By 6:00 a slight fever had set in and arrangements were made for us to go to Renown. Had you or I run a fever at 100-101 we would probably not even taken Tylenol or Motrin, but when someone is as neutropenic as she was, anything fever is dangerous. The ANC was ...