The Case of Katie and the Cancerous Kidney

Hi, my name is Stacy Redding. Christina Kump and I started this GoFundMe to help our dear childhood friend Katie Tuminelly. To know Katie is to love Katie.

#teamtuminelly

Katie went to the ER on March 13th after five consecutive days of incredible back pain. After being laid off from her restaurant job at the end of January she had decided not to purchase Cobra due to its high premiums and well, her lack of employment. Within a few weeks she had a new job training to be a GM with Papa Johns Pizza. Health benefits didn’t kick in until 60 days but that was only about 6 weeks away and what could happen in 6 weeks? A challenge one should never pose to the universe. Katie had been learning the art of slapping pizza dough. It’s a process that appealed to her artistic side. There is a stretching portion that taxes the back muscles in a strange way, and she thought her new pain must be from making pizza. However, after 5 consecutive days and increasing pain, she landed in the ER. After several doses of pain meds and blood tests, a CT scan of her chest, abdomen, and pelvis was ordered. Then she was left in a hospital bed to ponder her fate. At about three in the morning a middle-aged doc scampered into her room and sat down in the chair beside her bed, an odd move for a busy doctor. “We have some good news and some bad news” he started. “The good news is that we didn’t find anything serious causing your back pain. No heart problems, no blood clots” and without a pause, or so much as a breath “the bad news is we found sizable tumor on your right kidney. We think its cancer.”

In the weeks that have followed Katie has learned that she has a solid 4.5x4.9cm tumor (about the size of a lime) in the center of her right kidney which, according to her doctors, is believed to be malignant. Biopsies are rare with kidneys as they worry about infection or seeding (spreading cancer into the abdomen). There is a very very small chance of metastasis, about 1%. They believe that it is currently confined to the kidney. Raise your hands in the air for one little kidney taking the hit for the whole team. Due to this tumors size and placement the next step is the partial or total removal of her right kidney. Due to her age they will attempt to preserve as much kidney function as possible taking only the tumor and a margin necessary to remove infected tissue. If there are complications the whole kidney will be taken out. Katie is scheduled to have a robotic laparoscopic nephrectomy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester on May 5th.

Anyone that knows Katie knows she is a fighter. She stood up to bullies as a kid and maintained a strong grip on first chair clarinet in band for almost the entirety of her high school years. She moved to New York by herself at the age of 21. Studied and auditioned, and auditioned and studied for 5 years to get into the graduate school of her dreams, Juilliard. She is an incredibly talented actress who’s smile, and big goofy laugh have the power to fill whole rooms. She loves great wine, fine food, and that moment in the theater just after the lights go down and before the story telling starts. Her heart belongs to four tiny poodles. She believes there is no greater power than laughter and that our biggest struggles almost always give way to the most beautiful revelations. This journey with cancer has already shown her how utterly magnificent the tribe of humans she has met in her life truly are. She also feels incredibly grateful to pizza for saving her life.

As we know cancer is costly. The medical bills have already started rolling in. Unfortunately, when Katie was laid off, she lost not only her health insurance but her short and long term disability. We want Katie’s energies to be on healing and would love to alleviate some of the financial fear that is associated with this chapter. Family and friends have been asking how they can help. So, we set this fund up as just one way however, prayers, love, food, phone calls, and good jokes are all welcome.