The Ballad of Katie: Somewhere Under Heaven Series

Philadelphia

Casey's POV

I somehow manage to get off of I-95 and the Vine Street Expressway in one piece. Now I know why I always hated driving into the city. I get onto Market Street and start making my way up to 34th where I turn to get to CHOP. 

Parking is such a pain. I had to ask a Philly cop where to go to park for the hospital. Thank God he knew because I would have been circling through this area like crazy. I finally park and head towards the hospital. I get to the main entrance where I tell the security guard why I'm there.

"My daughter was just brought in from Princeton Health," I inform him. He then takes my information and asks for ID. After a few minutes, he gets a volunteer to escort me to where I need to go. I'm walking up the hall when I see Rob standing near the family waiting area. "They just took her in for a bone biopsy," he tells me. 

I then see a text from Uncle Colin with a photo of him and Ashton at a Red Robin near the house. "Ashton's fine...he's just having a little fun with his other favorite uncle. Let me know how Katie is, lass." 

I text back, "I will. And thanks again." 

We sit and wait for what seems like forever. After a couple of hours, the doctor walks in. "Hello, you must be Katie's parents," he says to us. "I'm Dr. Lebowski and I'm the attending doctor assigned to your daughter. My associate Dr. Macy should be in here in a few minutes."

A couple seconds later, a younger woman with brown hair walks in. "Sorry I'm late," she says to us.  "It's quite all right," Dr. Lebowski says to her. He then turns to us, "Mr. and Mrs. Pattinson, this is Dr. Sandy Macy who is the oncologist I have called on to consult in the case." 

Dr. Macy takes a seat next to us.  "We ran every single test that we could," she says to us. "There's some good news and some bad news."

"Okay," I say.

"The good news is that there are no major infections or serious anemia issues."

"And the bad news," Rob asks.

"The bone biopsy is showing that Katie has juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia."

I'm shocked. "So what do we do," I ask Dr. Macy.

"We can do chemotherapy but Katie may need a bone marrow transplant," she tells us. "We're also going to see if her spleen has been enlarged by the cancer because that will require a splenectomy." 

"So what will happen with the bone marrow transplant," I ask.

"I would suggest everyone in the family get tested. Does she have siblings?"

"She has a brother," Rob tells Dr. Macy.

"Siblings usually are a hit or miss but we should get him tested. Also, you both should be tested to see if you're a match for Katie as well. Get a hold of whatever family you can because while relatives could be a long shot, it's possible they could match. We will also look at the national bone marrow registry in the event that we don't find a suitable candidate in the family. If we can't find a match anywhere, our next bet is we do a stem cell transplant and in that case we can use Katie's stem cells."

She then tells us the caveat of a bone marrow transplant. "There is one thing with a bone marrow transplant. The chance of rejection or what we call graft versus host disease can be 50% or more depending on how close of a match we get. If we get a perfect match, that number could drop lower than 50%. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it though." 

"We do what we have to," I tell Dr. Macy. "Thank you."

After Dr. Macy leaves I sit in shock. "This is a big one," I say. "I guess we're going to have to call Shane and see who Uncle Colin can get a hold of. I'll talk to Ash when we get home and you need to call your sisters in London. We have to do everything to save her."

"It'll be okay," Rob tells me. "We'll get through this. Guess we better go talk to our girl." 

The nurse gives us the room number where Katie is recovering and we would walk in to find her watching TV.  "Hey, Katie," Rob says to her. She immediately looks over. 

"Hi, Dad," she says to him.

"Katie, we need to talk," I say to her. "Remember when the doctors did all those tests?"

"It's bad, isn't it."

I don't know what to say. "Mom, you can tell me," Katie says.

I get a tear in my eye. I can't do it...I can't tell my daughter this. "Katie, the doctors..." I begin before I stop. 

Finally Rob steps in, "The doctors say that you have leukemia. They also say you have a good chance to fight it, love." 

"Well, there goes lacrosse," Katie jokes.

"Like your dad said earlier, there's always next year, Katie-bird," I tell her. "Right now, we just got to get you better." 

We would both pull Katie in for a group hug. "We're going to get through this," Rob tells us. "Katie, you're a fighter just like you're mum...you will beat this." 

I can't help but feel some content over that statement but I also feel a lot of anxiety. 

I would walk out of the room leaving Katie to watch some movie with her dad and I make a call to Uncle Colin. "It's not good," I say to him.

"Lass, whatever it is, we'll get through it."

I tell him it's leukemia and that she may need a bone marrow transplant. "I'll gather the troops to get tested. We're going to get through this, Casey. I swear on your Móraí's grave, we will get her through this."

I then call Shane and tell him the news. "Casey, I'm going to get tested. I'll get Dion to get tested as well. Nina's already in the registry because she donated to a kid in New York when she was in college. I'll also see if I can get some of the people who work for me in the office tested. We have to save Katie. What about you guys?

"I don't know if I can do it on account of the lingering issues from the accident, I'm going to talk to Ashton tonight when I get home. Rob's already got an appointment to get tested tomorrow afternoon back in Princeton." 

"It's going to be okay. We'll get through this."

Later that night I talk with Ashton. "No...not Katie," he says. I tell him he can find out if he can donate bone marrow and he agrees. "Mom, I have to do this. Even if Katie and I don't match, I can rest easy knowing I tried to save her." 

This family's going to need a lot of angels watching over us starting tonight.