The Power of Love and Medical Research

Last year 13 year old Katelyn of Rothesay, New Brunswick was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). This is a particularly hard-to-treat form of leukemia.

Katelyn credits her parents, Mary and Scott and her brother Gareth with keeping her going through her illness. “Every time Gareth came I felt better,” she says. “Even when I was really sick he’d come and visit and I’d feel 100 times better when he was there.”

“She’s my sister, so she means pretty much everything,” says Gareth a Grade 6 student.

Katelyn’s spirits were also buoyed up by the support of her school, Rothesay Park School. Funds were raised to help the family defray expenses. This included one special project where a group of students made and sold braided “Kate bracelets.”

Also each week, students, teachers and parents walked around the school field, with every lap raising money. Katelyn was given a jar full of beads, each bead represented a lap completed.

“It was amazing, considering that I’d only been at the school for half of a year. The whole school was raising money it was really, really cool just to see how into it they all were, says Katelyn.

“Childhood AML is treated more aggressively now based on what they know from research,” says Katelyn’s mother Mary. “Katelyn’s treatment gave her the best chance to beat this disease.”

Dr. Jason Berman is one of Katelyn’s doctors at the IWK Health Centre. He is also faculty member at Dalhousie Medical School carrying out pioneering research. He is increasing understanding of how different genetic mutations cause Katelyn’s kind of leukemia.

It is over a year since Katelyn’s bone marrow transplant in Toronto, and she is doing well. Now she is lending her support to this year’s Molly Appeal which will purchase an RNAi Library facility for cancer research in the Maritimes.

“All through the treatment I thought that it was kind of a good thing that I ended up with this. That way I could raise awareness and make a difference,” she says.