From My Perspective

Looking back on what has taken place in the past year is quite overwhelming. Family and friends often ask me, "How does all that has happened to you make you feel?" I've never really been one to "share my feelings" to those around me, but I thought I would take time to be transparent and just share what this trial has been like and how it has affected my own personal life. For those of you who have not caught on to what I am talking about, I am referring to my mom's battle of A.L.L. leukemia. So, let me take you back to the very beginning.....


April 12, 2010: This started out as a normal day for me. Up early in the morning and off to school. It was my senior year, and my main focus was graduating and getting off to college in the fall. This was just one month before I officially graduated so you can imagine how many things were going on all throughout the school at this time. It was very exciting! Purchasing graduation announcements, picking out yearbook layouts, going to basketball games, I was just a normal student/ teenager. After school had let out for the day some of my friends invited me out to eat. So we went to our normal hangout, Taco Bell. As we all sat around discussing everything that had taken place that day, my phone suddenly rang. It was my dad. When I answered all I could hear was crying. My whole stomach completely dropped. When he finally caught his breath he said to me, "Kayla, I need you to get home right away." I of course jumped in my car, and went straight home having no clue what was going on. As I stepped through the front door my dad sat me on the couch, and said there was something he had to tell me. I was shaking out of my boots. He began to explain, "Your Mom wasn't feeling well this morning so I took her to the doctor for an antibiotic. The doctors just didn't think something was right so they sent us to the hospital where they began running tests. Within 15 minutes a doctor came out and told us that she had leukemia. She has already been admitted to the hospital." Within 30 seconds my whole entire world was turned upside down. I thought to myself, "This cannot be true, they made a mistake." But it was very real. Suddenly dreams of graduating and going to college simply did not matter. My Mom had cancer. My mom? Cancer? This is the type of thing you hear happening to other people all the time. But to my family? I felt like I was in a movie.



April 15, 2010: It had been a couple of days after my mom's diagnosis. I was going to school as normal, but still having to digest the fact that Mom was laying up at the hospital with cancer. It just did not seem real. Word had spread throughout the church, but I had not told anyone at school at this point. This was a particularly big day for me. For those of you who are familiar with the ACE program, this was the day that I would finish my last PACE. Meaning I would be finished with all my work for the rest of high school! This was a huge milestone, and the school always tried to make it special for each student. After I finished and my test was graded, my best friend took me out to celebrate. Again, I got another phone call. It was my dad. He said, "Kayla, I need you to get to the hospital as soon as possible." When I arrived the doctor came in and told us that they had identified the type of leukemia my mom had. A.L.L. (Acute Lymphoma Leukemia) He began to tell us about this particular type and how it was a child's leukemia and only 1 out of 1,000 adults get it every year or two nationwide. It was extremely rare for someone my mom's age to get it. Of course, all of this was going right over my head. This was just insane. I mentally could not process that this was actually happening.



Things started happening really fast. Mom started chemo, her hair began to fall out, her weight was increasingly dropping, and she started to become very sick. The doctors told us that in order to save her life they would have to do a bone marrow transplant, so she would have to be transferred to a different hospital. The closest one we found was in Ohio at the Cleveland Clinic. Now started the search for a bone marrow donor, but they ran into another complication. One of the tests came back to show that she had something called a Philadelphia chromosome. This is where part of chromosome 9 and part of chromosome 22 break off and trade places. This meant that her DNA was corrupt! After looking through the entire, national database of bone marrow donors, there was not one single match. This was devastating. What were we going to do?



In the midst of this I graduated high school, and was now faced with the question, "Am I still going to go to college in the fall?" After praying about it I of course decided to postpone. Things started to become tight since Mom was out of a job, and on top of that hospital bills began to accumulate. I had managed putting off working throughout the school year, but I really needed to help out with bills. The Lord opened up a door right away for me. I was interviewed and hired at a place called Union Mission Brookside. This is a women's and children's homeless shelter. This was going to be a very interesting experience for me! My parents were very protective of me through my life, (which isn't a bad thing) and I had no knowledge of what the world was really like. I dealt with women straight off the streets, detoxing off of drugs, manipulating you for anything and everything, and taking advantage of you any chance they got. But that is a separate story in itself! I was already on such an emotional roller coaster with my family; you can only imagine how much this added to it!



This begins the journey of a hard trial that God, for some reason, has counted my family worthy of to go through. I have covered the first month with you and I hope to share the rest of our story up to the present time. Month after month I keep everything bottled up, and the Lord keeps bringing one verse to mind, "Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." II Corinthians 1:4 I pray that our story will help and encourage you and that God will get all the glory from it. He is so good, and so faithful, and deserves all the praise. This is my family's story, from my perspective.....