Khloe
2019 EMBRACING BRAVE NTX Spring Recipient
Khloe is a miracle to start! Her father, my husband was diagnosed at 32 with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma stage 4. He went thru many aggressive treatments and was told from the beginning that he would not have children. I, Nicole, her mother has a pituitary adenoma that causes you to become sterile if it grows large enough. I was diagnosed at 21 and assumed I could not have children either. Well in April 2009 God blessed us by being pregnant with Khloe. Khloe was due Jan 21st, but she was born on Jan 1st , 2010 at 2:24am. She was the first baby born in Baylor Grapevine hospital for that year. So, she has always made grand entrances in her life!
Khloe is our only child and the light of our entire family’s eyes! She has this way about her that draws people to her, and she just loves to help everyone! She just knows to say the right things at the right time and exactly what you need to hear! She gives unconditionally her time and anything she has! Khloe was VERY active in her school and Girl Scouts, she is a very social girl. Right before Christmas 2018 she went to stay at her Grandparents house while I worked. Her cousin brought hover boards over to play. They both had so much fun but also had a couple of bad crashes. We noticed that Khloe was bruising more than normal. She went through spurts of bruising a lot and then not so much, but this was excessive! Her and I counted her bruises on Christmas Eve and she had 34 covering her body. We thought that she might have an iron deficiency or was anemic. I took her to the Cooks Urgent Care the day after Christmas so there were a lot of kiddos being seen. It took us 3 hours to get into the doctor and once we were seen they told us to go straight downtown to the Cooks ER for some more extensive blood work. Once we were downtown, they did blood work and said her platelets were critically low. They admitted us and on the 27th of December diagnosed Khloe with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) cancer. To say we were in shock was far from the truth! She was healthy, active, lively 8-year-old with a little bruising! No way could our Khloe have cancer! We were in the hospital for 10 days, one of those days being her 9th birthday! We tried our hardest to make it as good of a birthday as you can have in the hospital! Since diagnosis she has had many spinal taps and bone marrow biopsies, steroids that made her gain so much weight and she is losing her hair. For a 9-year-old this is HUGE! This is the time you are realizing what your looks are all about! This diagnosis has had a huge impact on her, basically taken away all things she loves, her friends, her school, her Girl Scouts. Due to her immune system being compromised she has limited contact with everyone right now and will for the first 9 months of her treatment. She has her good days and bad days. We are on a marathon journey for 2 ½ years, sometimes day by day is not short enough so we go second by second. But we are blessed, since we do have this, we did get the best case diagnosis! Pre-B ALL Average risk.
We have learned that with out a tribe you can not do it! Paul has since gone back to work, but taking off for EVERY appointment and procedure, and I am not working at this time. My mother stays with us during the week, and her other grandmother and my father come over regularly. Khloe’s family, friends, school, and community have rallied behind her and us! She is one tough smart little girl who is going to fight like no other!!! She is #KhloeStrong and #BrandonBrave!!! She is our Warrior!- 2019
