Kaidence Sletto

Right around thanksgiving Kaidence became very sick with what we thought was just a respiratory virus and stomach bug in one. She continued to get better throughout the week and in the last week and a half all she had was a productive cough and low grade fever. We continued thinking she was just trying to kick this virus. Brought her in for a second time after 2 weeks of being sick, told us it was still just a virus and sent us home again.  During these few weeks we also noticed bruising that started out just a couple bruises here and there, fast forward to now and its all over her body. We thought "oh she's 2, Kaidence is a wild child." The night of December 16th we noticed the glands in the back of her neck were swollen so figured "ok lets bring her in 1 more time to the clinic and get some answers because she just isn't getting better, maybe its strep."

December 17th our lives changed forever. Kyle brought Kaidence into the clinic to run a strep test and also some blood work because we didn't think this was just a virus, having such swollen glands just didn't seem normal. 2 hours later the Doc came in to give Kyle the news alone. I was home making pancakes that morning, we had Ayla (her older sister) that weekend along with our 2 nieces Bristol and Brooklynn. Doc came in told Kyle you need to go to Minneapolis right away. Kaidence's white blood cell count was nearly 600,000 we think she may have leukemia.  For someone her age it should be roughly between 5-12,000 a little more with a infection or virus. Kyle called me as soon as he left the clinic and told me the news over the phone. I yelled at him and called him a liar and begged him to be joking. He had to hear this news alone and I was hysterical to say the least. I will never forget everything I felt in this exact moment. It was the worst day of our lives. We continued our drive to Minneapolis, hoping when we got there they would do there testing and tell us it was all a mistake. When the words “your daughter has leukemia” came out of the Dr’s mouth, we didn't want to believe it, we wanted this to just be some kind of bad dream.....but it wasn't it was so real and everything happened so fast. Who knew your life could change so much in such a split second.

That night they stuck her 5 times to try and find a good vein for her 1st IV of 5 total. She was awake for this and screamed and cried like none other. They ended up needing to put her in a medically induced coma so they could do a procedure called leukophoresis. I cannot describe the what it felt like to have to kiss my baby girl and tell her I loved her one last time, as we didn’t know when she would come out of this coma or if she would come out of this coma. It was so painful to have to watch her go through all of this in just the first night but this was only the beginning. The beginning of a very long journey. 

Our beautiful little girl has leukemia, a blood cancer, our free spirited, full of life little girl. It breaks our hearts, its a feeling I cannot even describe, the worst possible feeling no parent should have to feel. The good news is, it is cure-able, not that having cancer let alone a child is anything but good, it is curable, and for that we are thankful.

It will be a long journey but our beautiful girl is sooo strong and tough I know she will pull through and kick cancer in the butt! Any donations will help tremendously with gas, medical bills, etc. Kaidence is such a wild and sweet loving little girl, we hope to see her back to her spunky self soon. Thank you all for you love and support, it truly means the world to us!