Kate Davis turned eight on July 1, this year and when Kate was only 3 - 1/2 years old they discovered that Kate had cancer.
story & photo
by Angela Olsen
I stumbled upon the most robust, playful & feminine little girl on the waterfront in Noank on July 4th. She was in a tremendous hurry, sporting an adorable pink cotton dress, running to join her playmates to thoroughly examine the fruits of their labor from an afternoon of crabbing off of Morgan Point Lighthouse. As we discussed the species of crabs, I suggested the blue crabs as a tasty snack for dinner! Aghast, she looked at me with a furrow in her brow and shouted, “No!! You can’t eat them! I don’t want to kill them!” I realized where I stood in this conversation and returned, with my escort, to the container of rum punch.
Later in the evening, after the sun set, and the elaborate displays of fireworks, up and down the Mystic River wrapped, we met again. I asked little Kate if she returned the crabs to safety, and she said “yes,” clearly forgiving me for my twisted ideas about devouring the sea creatures. In passing, someone mentioned that Kate just wrapped her last bone marrow treatment, and is such a trooper.
At this point, Kate and I were getting on like old buddies, so I asked her about the ‘bone marrow treatment.” She said, “Yes, I just got my last treatment and here are my scars,” as she slid the straps to her sweet dress to the side to reveal one tiny white scar on the left, above her chest, and another scar to the right, which her mother, Jessica Davis later tells me are referred to as her badges of courage.
My heart sank as I looked into her beautiful eyes, thinking first and foremost about my own niece Haley, who is nine years old, and secondly, about my best buddy Joey Lawrence of New London, who essentially lived at my childhood home with me growing up. We shared every childhood and adolescent right of passage together, like first crushes, first kisses, sporting events, you name it.
The last time I went to visit him I will never forget the feeling. I was told that his Leukemia was getting the best of him, and that I better get to Yale-New Haven Hospital to visit. En route, I stopped to enlarge a photograph of us together and bumped into a tear-stained, red-eyed mutual friend Mike Serluca, who told me that I was too late. My heart stopped and I will never forget that moment. I think of my best buddy, my brother from another mother, Joey, every single day.
My new friend Kate turned eight on July 1, this year. Her mother, Jessica was extremely generous in chatting with me about her journey, which started when Kate was only 3 1/2 years old. Her little girl kept bruising badly and she couldn’t figure out why. She brought her to NYU Medical Center and she was admitted immediately and awaiting blood within 2 ½ hours. They discovered that Kate had the “good kind of cancer,” meaning that she had a 91% chance of survival, but it was no cakewalk.
Kate almost died on her fourth birthday because she had a high fever, 105 degrees and no immune system. This, according to Jessica was the absolute worst moment, having to place Kate in ice baths for 12 straight days in the hospital trying to break the deadly fever. The fifty bone marrow procedures and over 28 rounds of chemotherapy daily or living for four months in-patient in the hospital weren’t as tough.
Jessica details a moment where she was stripped-down in bra and panties, with a garbage bag over Kate to cover her ports, with her in the bathtub trying to get her to hold down her medication and Kate kept rejecting it. Finally Kate asks, “Mommy, If I don’t take this medication, am I going to die?”
“Yes, you will,” said Jessica, and “We are going to keep trying until you can keep it down.”
It’s this vigilance on the part of Jessica and the community combine that keeps Kate alive and well. Whether at home, or in the hospital, bacteria can be a matter of life or death. Doorknobs were Cloroxed at least twice a day, parents at Kate’s day school would not send their children to school sick ever, out of respect for her well-being.
Their household went from an organic kitchen to a ‘processed’ home, because Kate was so sensitive, for example, to the germs which spread if one person’s hands reached into a bag of crackers. Rather than eating a strawberry, which would be a healthy option, a prepackaged processed snack was safer, because of the bacteria lurking on the stem of the berry!
Eleven friends of Kate’s succumbed to this disease. Even though the adorable youngster lost her hair twice… every single strand, even her eyelashes, she tell me, “The only thing I hate about cancer is having friends who die. One of my friends was six when I was four; she died. Mommy and I were talking about rainbows and Mommy said, ‘Stella always loved rainbows and I knew she died and burst into tears!’” Stella was Kate’s best friend and there was no match for her blood-type. Jessica lied to Kate at first to protect her, but she caught on and was angry for a few weeks, but nothing keeps this miracle child down!
Even in the midst of becoming a 41-year old single-mother of four youngsters, Jessica says, “You don’t count your blessings until they’re almost taken away. at the end of the day, I have a healthy kid!”
Kate’s twin Olivia wants people to know she is protective of her sister: “Don’t mess with Kate!”
To make donations for research, etc. go to www.leukemia-lymphoma.org and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center at www.mskcc.org.
