Kristin "Kourageous" Katich

Monday morning it was decided that Kristin's marrow was slowly on the upswing and recovering enough to where the docs felt that Kristin could come home. This news was met with much relief on her part. After looking at the monocytes, her labs were all indicating that her ANC was on the way up. Although it is still not good enough for school, it was safe enough to be home. If her ANC is above 500 on Thursday, she would receive vincristine and more methotrexate. The latter being responsible for the low counts. We were secretly hoping that she would be too low for the methotrexate as Kristin did not want a repeat of last week. It was rough for the entire family. Sometimes we jokingly ask if we can get time off for "good behavior." They just laugh and say no. Thursday we returned; relunctantly, to Renown for more chemo.... her ANC was 468! No methotrexate, yes! I asked what bearing this had on her progress and they said that the chemo had done it's job and she did...

A JOYFUL CELEBRATION ! Darren, Linda, and Jared Lasko She's going to love this! Willie and Amanda Hartman Rob and Kyle Darren, Cody, Cory Foulk, and JR Hansen Braden, Garret, Ryan, Derek, Josh Karen Cox, Jenny and Tim Amundsen Devery Amundsen, Chris Dugen LaRae Wilson, Sherry Foote, Diane Feldman Only the best of friends! Happy Birthday! I am finally getting around to down-loading pictures from Kristin's fabulous 18th birthday. After much ado, we were finally able to pull it off. I knew that picking a day and hoping counts would be good was a shot in the dark. As it turned out, we did it in the nick of time as two days later Kristin's counts crashed and we spent the week at recovering. We want to say; from the bottom of our hearts, "Thank you." The evening was beautiful and it was such a joyous celebration for Kristin. I cannot explain to you all how it made her feel in words. Suffice it to say, she felt very loved . We are very grateful to have been able ...

Tuesday I picked Kristin up from school after the nurse had called. She had a fever of 100.2 and was complaing of the chills. After talking to Oakland we went straight to Renown. She was immediately started on iv antibiotics, and labs and blood cultures were drawn. Soon the fever was conquered. Labs showed that she was severely neutropenic. Her neutrophils were basically nill meaning she was very susceptible to infection. Although the cultures have been negative thus far, it would be extremely dangerous to go home until her counts are on the up swing and recovering. She has a 50% chance of getting a life threatening infection. Dr. Hastings has said that there have been times when patients have gone home with counts like hers and have not made it back to the hospital in time! That is how quickly these patients have can take a turn for the worse. She spoke right to Kristin as she said this. As stressful as this is for her she is in the best place and receiving excellent care f...

This was the text that Kristin sent me from school Friday morning. The night before she had been getting dizzy when she stood up and she said her heart was pounding. This usually means that her hemoglobin is low and she needs a transfusion. The past week had been incredibly difficult for her and she was trying desperately to keep up with school but just could not muster up enough energy to do so. She has been terribly pale and tired. So, bright and early Friday morning, we did labs and had them to LabCorp by 7 a.m. Around 11:00 Oakland called with the numbers. HGB 7 and Platelets 20. This meant off to Renown for two units of juicy packed red blood cells and one unit to platelets. We arrived at 1:00 and did not receive any transfusions until 5:00!!!!!! I got some movies and Darren brought fried rice to help pass the time. Needless to say we did not get home unitl 2 a.m. this morning. Thank you to all of you who have donated blood products! These save lives and Kristin is with us...

Chemo on Monday was rough, to say the least. Kristin has slowly gotten back up and is still reeling a bit from the effects. She spent Tuesday sleeping and slept until 10:oo this morning, missing some of school. We dealt with a slight fever that could not decide to stay or go throughout Tuesday night. By the morning, it was gone...whew! Eating has become challenging as she is sooo hungry and very much wants to eat, but her stomach seems to not tolerate very much. Soup is a favorite as she says that the warmth feels good in her stomach. The good news is that there is no chemo until Sept. 22.... Yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess I am not in the mood to mince words.....Kristin had an LP with chemo today! Yes, cancer, for lack of a better word, just sucks!

Kristin and I left for Oakland on Labor Day afternoon. We had anticipated some traffic, but..... holy cow, it took five and a half hours just to get to Vacaville. With all the heavy construction and holiday traffic we averaged 35 mph the entire trip. Kristin ended up car sick just from all the braking I had to do. Our appointment was for 10:00 Tuesday morning. She received methatrexate and vincristine via an iv push and a drip. We drove back to Vacaville and I had the best nap ever! Kristin rested quietly, but ended up feeling very nauseated later in the evening. Wednesday we drove to Alta Bates Hospital in Berkley (actually it is only minutes away from Children's) where we met radiologist Dr. Swift. I had not wanted to go forward with this meeting and honestly it angers me that she has to endure radiation. But, Kristin has three strikes against her that make this arm of the protocol necessary. 1. pretreatment of steroid before diagnosis 2. her age 3. the mll gene rearran...