We Are Children's » Kerri Becker: Share Your Story

Kerri Becker: Share Your Story

At age 5, my daughter Kylie had a tumor behind her right eye that was inoperable and she was diagnosed with rabdomayosarcoma. She got chemo and radiation to treat the tumor.

Within one year, she started to get a cataract in the eye due to the extensive radiation she recieved. Two years into her remission of the rabdo, Kylie started bruising easily and feeling poorly.

Now back into school and getting back to a normal life, she was sent home from school twice because her teacher said she just wasn’t herself and he had concerns.

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When we took Kylie in for her regular oncology check up, a blood test showed that she now had aml leukemia that they believe was caused by the treatment she received for her rabdo.

Devastated for sure, she was admitted into Children’s Hospital Los Angeles immediately. Their first attempt to get the leukemia into remission with chemo failed as well as the second attempt.

The third time, using a newly-approved chemo, worked. Although in remission, doctors felt it would come back without a bone marrow transplant, so they began looking for a marrow donor match.

Unable to find one, they used for the first time a new bone marrow treatment where they used my (her mother’s) bone marrow. I was a half match only.

So, 6 weeks after they gave Kylie my marrow, they collected T cells from both myself and her father, spun them around together until they tolerated one another, then gave her the treated T cells. We waited for results.

Because God is great, it worked. Doctors came from Boston to help with the procedure.

Before deciding to do this, we went to City of Hope. They said they could not help her. Children’s Hospital saved my daughter’s life. They have the best children’s cancer doctors in the world.

We still take one day at a time but Kylie is back in school, almost twelve years old, and doing terrific.

THANK YOU ALL AT CHILDREN’S! WE LOVE YOU ALL!