2022 Little Warrior: Kennedi Borg
The day after Halloween 2020, Kennedi spiked a fever of 101.5. Tyler and I were told it could be her 2 year molars coming in and sometimes kids can spike fevers. We watched her like a hawk (like normal). We alternated Ibupforen and Tylenol every 3 hours. She continued to run low grade Temps the rest of that day and the next. I called into Buffalo ER and since Covid was still fairly new, they told us to isolate at home. But if the fever still existed the next day to come in (3days of fevers). Which it did, so we went in late that afternoon to the ER. They did several different tests (strep. Covid, chest xray for pneumonia) on her and everything came back normal except her blood test. Her white cell count was very high. Which indicated infection somewhere. A normal person has a white cell count between 5,000-15,000. Kennedi’s was at 53,000. When the nurses in the ER tried to draw blood out of her tiny little arm, Her arm started getting all these bluish and purple bumps called “Petechiae”. Which indicated something was very wrong. After we got the results from her blood, we were brought down to Children’s in Minneapolis by ambulance. In addition to the diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Kennedi has had 2 chemo ports placed and a PICC line. Less than two weeks after the first port was placed, she got an infection called “pseudomonas”. Which is a sticky bacteria. It can grow on the plastic ports. So they took that port out and put another central line in, The PICC line. We stayed in the hospital for the first few days of the infection but then they trained me on how to do all her antibiotics on her PICC line at home. I learned A LOT! It was nice for us to finally be at home with Dad and our two kitties! After the antibiotics were done. They placed another working port in her upper left chest. And that one has worked very well for her Thankfully!
Kennedi has been through a rigorous treatment plan. It was Extremely intense the first 9 months. She had Inpatient high dose Methotrexate treatments which was inpatient for three days every other week for 8 weeks. Several spinal taps (Lumbar Punctures) where they put her under and Inject Methotrexate into her spinal fluid in her back. Thankfully, She never had any leukemia cells in her spinal fluid!! She has been on several different medications such as steroids, antibiotics, chemotherapy pills (at home, each night now that we are in the maintenance phase).
The treatment for Kennedi began November 4th, 2020 and end of treatment is on March 2nd, 2023. We are almost to the one year mark and we are happy that she will hopefully have a normal life again after that. This has been a lot for her to deal with and as her parents this devastated us. We are sooo incredibly thankful that her outcome from the ALL is good. We hope it never returns!
She has been such a trooper during all of this. There aren’t enough words in the world to describe how proud of her we are. We are sooo incredibly blessed that God let us be her parents. She is our life, our light and our shining star!
Written by Kennedi’s mom, Lacey.
Link below allows you to donate to Kennedi and her family. 100% of proceeds will go to her.