The Ballad of Katie: Somewhere Under Heaven Series

Ring The Bell

Casey's POV

"It's a miracle!"

I just saw the email from Dr. Macy and I scream these words out to the heavens. 

"What's a miracle," Rob asks as he rushes in the room. I then show him the email on my laptop screen. "Look at the numbers!"

"Holy shit, Case! The graft is holding! Our girl is going to beat this!" 

We jump for joy followed by one intense kiss. "I think this is right up there with the day the kids were born," I say. 

"Thought you were going to say when we found out you were pregnant with them," he teases.

"That too."

We spend the next several weeks going between the apartment in University City that we're borrowing from a friend, our home in Princeton, and the hospital. Ashton goes to see his sister as much as a 15 year old can but most of the time, we keep the kids connected through FaceTime and we even bring in little notes for Katie from her brother. 

It's close to the day when Katie will be discharged. Dr. Macy goes through everything we will need to know from here on out. "We'll have to suppress Katie's immune system a little to make sure that she doesn't reject the marrow," she tells us. "We'll monitor her closely for about a year and then we'll go from there. She's very lucky to be alive." 

Katie is discharged from CHOP three months after her transplant. On the way out, we head towards the cancer unit where Dr. Macy has a bit of a surprise.  "When we have patients who undergo treatment for cancer, we have them ring this bell at the end. Technically Katie did undergo a treatment so I want her to ring the bell."

Katie has been filming this whole day and she pauses the camera for a second. "I need one of you to take this," she tells us. 

"You're the filmmaker, Case," Rob tells me as he steps back a few inches. 

"Rats, and I thought we were going to play rock, paper, scissors again," I tease. 

I take the camera from Katie and press the record button once more. "Okay, Katie, are you ready," I ask. "Let's do this," she tells me.

Before she rings the bell, she decides to say something into the camera. "Hello, world! My name is Katherine Talulah Pattinson and this is the my final day of treatment for leukemia. Today is the first day of the rest of my life." After that, she grabs the rope attached to the bell and pulls. 

Never did I think hearing a bell ringing would mean something. Everyone would cheer and I stood there, camera in hand filming the greatest moment captured on camera...a daughter getting a hug from her dad who was truly the hero of the moment. 

"And I owe it all to the greatest hero of all...my dad," she says. 

"You're not just saying that because I was Batman," he jokes. Everyone laughs and of course I captured it on camera. 

A few days later, I see Katie at work on my Mac Pro editing video. "Hey, kiddo...shouldn't you be in bed," I ask.  "Shhh...the genius is at work," Katie tells me.

 I walk out of the room laughing. "She's going to be just like you," Rob jokes as I head to the bedroom to call it a night. 

A couple weeks later, she would approach us with her MacBook Air and tell us she has something for us to watch. We watch the video she sets up which is of everything from her cancer journey from the initial treatments that failed to her bone marrow transplant and its success. 

"It's amazing, Katie," I say to her. 

"You think," she asks. "I'm going to put it in the running for a film festival we're doing at school next week." 

"Do you have a title," Rob asks her.

"Yeah. I call it Somewhere Under Heaven." 

Katie would win top honors in the film festival and she would ask if I could help her get it to a larger audience which I agree to after she begs me for three days. Maybe this is what Móraí meant all those years ago about Katie taking over the world.