January until Present Time

Since January 31, 2008, all of our lives have been turned upside down. How could a young and outgoing person like Kristy have ALL? I remember thinking just a couple of weeks before she got sick, that our family had been so fortunate not to have any major illnesses . I would listen to the St. Jude children and my heart would break for the parents and the children. It was more than I could listen to. Never did I think that I would be one of those parents, just to an older child.
We were told that Kristy probably had this since childhood and something made it come out. Kristy was never a sickly child. She loved to swing and swing she did, non stop. Her Grandma Kirby would stand out there and push her and she never seemed to get tired of doing it.

And three wheeler! She and her cousin rode those three wheels so hard. She would leave in the morning and she would come back either riding or pushing. Now at 35 she tells me all the "little accidents" that she didn't tell me then.
Then it was horses. I had a palomino that Kristy was scared to ride so I went out and found one that she could ride. She got on Poco the very first day and took off up the road on that horse and from there it was no stopping. She started riding the palomino, Samantha, in speed events and Poco in western pleasure. She and her sister, Kay Ellen, would ride during the day and then I would ride with one or the other in the evenings and on weekends. Those horses were so muscled up that even the vet couldn't believe how great they looked. She washed those horses every weekend, rode at the local horse shows, and participated in 4-H.

Then she got married and started having children she quit riding and gave up three wheeling.

Last year 2007 she finally had gotten her life all together. All the children were in school and she started driving a Hanover County School Bus. She loved those kids on her bus and really worried about them. She had gotten a motorcycle and loved to ride just to get out and feel the freedom it gave.
Then she got sick with ALL. She almost died the 2nd day at MCV. It went from her arm into her lungs. She went to the trauma ICU and then to the respiratory ICU. She stayed almost a week there and then went back to the 6th floor in Massey Cancer Center. She stayed about another week and then went home. She went back in a week and started chemo. She went in on a Friday and by Sunday she had crashed again and was rushed to the CCU. Then she went to respiratory ICU. For about 9 days she was kept unconsicous and then they started bringing her back. Later they told us that they didn't think she would come out of ICU alive. By this time she had lost most of her long curly auburn hair.(She had cut it short before she went back for the chemo)She had curls around her face and in the back. She never lost it all. So home she went unable to walk or have full use of her arms and hands. She crawled to the couch once we got her up the steps and then we swung her legs up so that she could lay down.So we thought we would have a little break. Then her gall bladder decided it wasn't happy anymore. So to the emergency we went. This was on a Thursday and they didn't operate until Monday. Something about it being a weekend and the doctors would have to take emergencies that came in over the weekend. I thought she was an emergency. Well she had a whole weekend of no food and a lot of pain. By Monday her gall bladder was so inflamed that either they damaged a duct from the liver to gall bladder or it made it all by itself because it was so bad they had to call in the liver transplant surgeon to fix it.. Her one hour surgery turned into 6 hours. She ended up with an incision from her sterum to her right side.
So she had 6-8 weeks of recovery before they could start the chemo again and start planning the bone marrow transplant. The doctors did their part, but there is not enough help on the 6th floor. If we as a family had not stayed and helped her get showers, help get her food containers open, change her bedding and clean her up after accidents she would have been in a lot worse shape. Then she had visits to the Dalton clinic for fluids and blood as needed. They had trouble getting a spinal tap so they put an Omaya Reservoir in her head under the skin. So they used that for putting chemo in her spine and withdrawing spinal fluid to check it for ALL. The hickman in her chest had gotten infected so they put a pickline in her arm with 2 ports. They just took that out last week and have installed a hickman and another port under the skin on her right chest.
And that pretty much brings us up to date and this is where her bone marrow transplant starts when she entered the hospital on the 17th.
(This post written by Kristy's Mom, Kathryn or "K K")