Kat's mom, Christina, diagnosed Kat with her leukemia because of all sorts of weird symptoms- nose bleeds, bleeding loose teeth, lack of appetite, weird bone pain. Two days before Thanksgiving in 2017 Christina brought Kat to CT Children's and after some blood tests, she was told a hematologist was coming down to talk to them. This confirmed Christina's fear that it was leukemia. At the age of 6 1/2, her little girl was going to undergo years of chemotherapy for her B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Kat spent the next 31 nights at CCMC including the first night in the PICU getting her stable with red blood and platelets, surgery a few days later to have a portacath inserted in her chest, and began chemo. On day 28 of treatment, they received the news that her bone marrow aspiration showed no evidence of disease and she was discharged home for the holidays with outpatient treatment at CCMC for the next 2 1/2 years.

The first 7 months were the hardest, with more hospital stays and many emergency weekly visits for chemo plus extra visits for side effects and fever protocol, as well as some every other day visits for 7 doses of certain chemo. Kat missed a lot of school that first year, but by late spring she was able to be back most of the time. When she finished front-line treatment that summer and was able to make it to maintenance treatment, it brought a lot more normalcy back. She did have some blood sugar issues from treatment that caused some frustration and worry, and one ambulance ride that was scary for her family. But she finished chemo in March 2020, right as the pandemic hit. As much as it sucked not to get to do all the fun things we had planned, we are so thankful she is healthy and doing great off treatment.