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Nearly nine years ago this winter, I sat at a kitchen table in Wisconsin with the bravest little girl in the world who had decided that instead of her usual peppermint tea that afternoon she preferred hot chocolate floated with exactly seven marshmallows – one for every year of her young life.
“When I’m 50, I shall have 50 marshmallows,” she announced.
That made her mother and me smile, though at the time there was little to suggest she would make it to her 50th birthday. Or her 15th. Or her 10th. Or her eighth.
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Be the match To become a bone marrow donor or learn more about the National Marrow Donor Program registry: marrow.org or 1-800-627-7692. |
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That was the last time I saw Kailee Wells, an Albuquerque girl who at age 5 was diagnosed with very serious aplastic anemia, a disease in which bone marrow cannot produce enough red blood cells. Doctors at the time told her parents, Linda and Owen Wells, that Kailee had a 10 percent to 15 percent chance of surviving three more months.
In her own precocious way, Kailee knew death was hovering. Now and then, she would blurt out a foreboding comment that took her parents’ breath away, like saying that after she died she would miss her mom.
But if you know the Wellses – if you know Kailee – you know they don’t lose hope easily. Their search for a perfect marrow donor match took them from Albuquerque to China, where they had adopted Kailee as an infant, and then to Milwaukee to the doctor and the children’s hospital they believed could save her.
Their quest also saved others who found marrow matches thanks to the Wellses’ numerous donor drives held in the U.S. and China.
At the time of my afternoon “tea” with Kailee in 2004, she already had undergone the first of three marrow transplants, using cells that were an imperfect match but that bought her time. She had survived numerous near-death scares and spent more time in a hospital bed than any child should ever have to for the transfusions and treatments that kept her alive.
A year later, that one miraculous perfect match – a young doctor in China named Wang Lin – was found, a single soul in a sea of billions. Kailee underwent a second transplant using his cells in Nov. 7, 2005. But in September 2006, as her blood counts once again plummeted, she required an additional infusion of stem cells from her perfect donor.
It was, doctors told them, Kailee’s last chance.
Linda Wells holds then-6-year-old daughter Kailee in 2003 at Albuquerque International Sunport. Kailee is now 15, healthy and living in Wisconsin. (COURTESY OF LINDA WELLS)
Six years later, that last chance appears to have worked. Kailee is 15, beautiful and healthy.
“She is done with all of that, totally over the whole thing,” Linda Wells said in a phone call this week from the family home in Port Washington, Wis. “Her counts are normal. There’s just no remnant of it. She’s on not one medicine, not one pill.”
Linda Wells said Kailee’s physician, Dr. David Margolis, has remarked that Kailee’s recovery is the slowest he’s ever seen. But it is a complete recovery.
The little girl who told me that day at tea that when she beat her disease she would run around in a swimsuit all day, watch cartoons all night and ride a horse can now do all these things, though it appears that mostly what she wants to do is to simply live normally.
She shows no deficits because of the years she missed school and socializing with other children. Today, she is a straight-A high school sophomore – save for that pesky B in an advance placement course. She surrounds herself with friends and a boyfriend or two and maintains that same sage outlook beyond her young years.
“I remember saying not too long ago, I made the comment to her, that I just felt so bad when I thought about all she went through,” Linda Wells said. “And she says, ‘Oh Mom, that was a long time ago. I’m OK now; everything is OK.’”
And it is. The Wellses have put down roots in a small, close community just off Lake Michigan where everybody knows them – and yet few know just how sick Kailee was or how her story reached across the globe.
Kailee likes the anonymity.
At Owen’s urging, Linda Wells wrote a manuscript about Kailee’s struggle. Book editors had been interested but wanted Kailee, a talented writer like her mother, to write the prologue.
“But she kept putting it off and putting it off, and finally I said, ‘Look, do you not want to do it or what?’ ” Linda Wells said. “And she admitted she didn’t want to, because she didn’t want to go through the questions and the interviews. If the book was published, she would have to reopen that chapter.”
Linda put away the manuscript and is saving it should Kailee ever want to read it. So far, she hasn’t.
The Wellses still visit Albuquerque frequently. Three older siblings and Linda’s parents still live here, and Owen Wells still maintains his graphic design business in Albuquerque. These days, though, the bulk of his business is in the Milwaukee area.
So, too, is the life – the healthy part – that Kailee knows best. Wisconsin is where her friends are.
“We wanted to give her stability after so many hard years,” her mother said. “So we stay here.”
Kailee will be in Albuquerque on Christmas night to visit family, one of her first trips away from her parents.
“It’s so amazing to go from living every day fearing that this was the day she might die to now. She is nearly sweet 16,” Linda Wells said. “It’s really quite miraculous.”
It’s time to buy more marshmallows. As many as Kailee wants.
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
Call the reporter at 505-823-3603
