Hi everyone,
This is Kyle Edmonston, Katie's brother writing on behalf of her story. Recently she was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and started treatment in the last few days, which will include a 5-week stay in the hospital and a subsequent bone marrow transplant.
Medical expenses aren't very clear at this point, but since she's decided to stay in Minneapolis for treatment, we anticipate frequent traveling for our parents to be the most significant financial burden in the near term. Our mom will be staying with us during initial treatment, but our dad will likely be flying back and forth between Virginia and Minnesota on a weekly basis.
If you know my family, you know they hate asking for help. I'm putting up this fundraiser to hopefully create a financial source to help with travel expenses during this time, as well as potentially have something to help cover bills when they start to come in. Any little bit helps, and of course if you don't have anything to spare please don't sweat it! Leaving words of encouragement for Katie here or on the associated Facebook post are priceless and just as helpful during this time if you're able to provide them.
I'll do my best to provide a weekly update of how she's doing!
With love,
The Edmonstons
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10/4/22: Finished her first set of IV chemo! Now she moves on to two weeks of oral chemo to hopefully wipe out the problematic leukocytes and essentially CTRL+ALT+DEL her immune system to prep it for a new one! Starting the process of finding a bone marrow donor -- crossing all my fingers that I'm a perfect sibling match and my immune system will become hers.
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10/16/22: Just a couple more days left of oral chemo! Tomorrow she gets her nasal pack removed which we're all hoping will be the most satisfying & relieving feeling in the entire world Katie's been full of energy and making rounds on her hospital floor causing trouble. Bone marrow biopsy happens on Wednesday and we're hopin' the induction chemo did what it needed to!
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