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She was his first born, a healthy precious baby girl. When she looked at her daddy, sparkles danced in her eyes and she brought a smile to his face.
Twenty-nine year old David Fuller never thought twice about miracles, until he saw his Kaylea blossoming.
“She was just the perfect little girl,” Fuller said about his 10-year-old. “Never in a million years did I think my baby would be suffering from leukemia.”
A China Grove native, David Fuller worked as a subcontractor for Corporate Outlet, a tile company. He and Kaylea’s mother are estranged.
Kaylea attended China Grove Elementary School, where she’s a straight-A student with many friends. She enjoys going to church and she loves to read.
“I used to always tell her that reading made you smarter, so she read a lot. I guess what I said really meant a lot to her.” Fuller said.
Õnfortunately, Kaylea and her dad had to put all those things on hold on Sept. 7 when doctors determined she had acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare and aggressive cancer that usually affects people older than 60.
Today, she’s fighting back. Though her condition has improved, she remains on a respirator, able to communicate only through sign language. While the Fullers fight Kaylea’s disease, local groups, like Aid Association for Lutherans and China Grove Elementary School, are trying to help with expenses.
In honor of Kaylea, Godstock, the Rowan County Christian charity group, will sponsor several events to raise funds — and matching grants — to help the Fuller family with expenses.
On Nov. 5, a Monday, a bone marrow and blood drive will be held at the South Rowan YMCA in Landis from 2 to 6:30 p.m. A softball tournament will follow on Nov. 3 and 4 and a golf tournament on Nov. 10. Registration costs $35 per person for golf and $125 per softball team.
To register for either tournament or to make a donation to Kaylea, contact John Bouk with Godstock at 704-857-7011 or mail information to him at Box 661, China Grove, NC 28203.
China Grove Elementary School and the Aid Association for Lutherans also have supported the family, whose troubles began some weeks ago.
Kaylea first developed a severe case of tonsillitis. After doctors prescribed antibiotics and steroids, her gums turned black.
“All of a sudden, she began getting what looked like red chigger bites on her leg that eventually turned into bruises,” David Fuller said. “Then one day she lost a tooth, and it never stopped bleeding. All of these things were just too much for me to handle.”
He took Kaylea to Rowan Regional Medical Center on Sept. 7, where they checked her bleeding gums and tested her blood.
When doctors found Kaylea’s white blood cell count abnormally high, they immediately transferred her to Brenner’s Children’s Hospital in Winston-Salem, where doctors diagnosed leukemia.
Kaylea was admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and had a week of chemotherapy treatments. After the treatment, doctors kept Kaylea for another week of monitoring. When doctors told Fuller that Kaylea was ready to go home on Sept. 28, he arrived at the hospital at 4 p.m. sharp, only to have to bring her back at 9:15 that night because of a severe case of strep throat.
Not much home life
Since Sept. 7, Kaylea has spent a total of 312 hours at home, and since Sept. 28, her father has been putting in at least 12 hours at Brenner’s every day.
“This has really been an emotional roller coaster for me and my family for the past month or so,” Fuller said.
Because of Kaylea’s see-saw conditions, David found it hard to get any rest, or even peace of mind.
“Sometimes I couldn’t even leave her side. If I would step out to get 30 minutes of sleep, Kaylea would begin coding, and I would have to go back and be by her side,” Fuller explained. “Then when I thought she was OK, I would try to step out and smoke a cigarette, and she’d begin coding again and then it happened one more time. So, I just stopped leaving her side.”
Coding is a medical term when a patient’s heart stops beating or when the heart’s beat is too faint for doctors or monitoring equipment to distinguish.
Because he’s with Kaylea, Fuller hasn’t been working. “My boss is the best,” said Fuller. “When I told him my situation, he let me know that I should be by my daughter’s side, and if I wanted to come in and work to get my mind off it, I could.”
David kept thinking of his boss’s offer. Since Kaylea was doing better after a week and a half out of PICU, Fuller took him up on his offer and went back to work, not knowing that Kaylea’s health would take a turn for the worse on that same day.
Now, Fuller doesn’t work at all and is living in the Ronald McDonald House in Winston-Salem, across from Brenner’s Hospital. Godstock, which sponsors fund-raisers for chronically ill kids and provides financial assistance for their families, has helped.
Fuller is spending so much time at the hospital that he almost knows all of the different hospital codes, like blue and red, and what they mean.
“I am constantly in this environment, and it is so depressing,” he said. “I try to escape by reading books and watching TV, but you cannot separate yourself from this ... Best thing you can do is hope for 30-minute intervals.”
Now that Kaylea’s white blood cell count is slowly getting back to normal, Fuller has been doing a lot better.
“I have received 100 percent support from my family, and I tell you, without their help I would have had an emotional and mental breakdown,” he said.
Fuller’s parents, Faye and Phillip Fuller, as well as his younger sister, Rebecca, have stayed by his side.
“We drove up from Monroe, Ga., to be with them and have been here for five weeks,” said Faye Fuller. “I’m here to relieve David and allow him some time to get some rest.”
Faye and Rebecca Fuller sometimes babysit David Fuller’s 2-month-old son, William, who suffers from spina bifida, a birth defect that affects the spinal column, another dilemma for the family but one that is now under control.
For Kaylea’s future, doctor’s suspect some problems with her kidneys, and she faces four more chemotherapy treatments in the next six months.
Doctors are giving Kaylea a 40 percent chance of surviving.
Explaining the disease
This week, as David Fuller sat and stared vacantly from lack of sleep, he said, “I’ll never forget the look on Kaylea’s face when I had to explain to her what leukemia was and the intensity of it. She just sat back in her hospital bed, took it in for a second and reacted to it the way a 20-year-old would, with strength.”
He recalls Kaylea memorizing the names of all of her medicines and the times she must take each one. When the nurses try to give her one of them and it’s the wrong one, she’ll quickly correct them, her father said.
“That’s one thing about Kaylea, she can always hold her own and handle the truth.”
She also extracted a promise from him if she lost her hair after chemotherapy.
“She said, ‘If I end up losing all of my hair, then you have to lose yours too,’ and since she did lose her hair, I let her shave me bald two weeks ago.”
Now that Kaylea is hooked up to a respirator and is unable to communicate, she uses sign language she learned from her aunt Rebecca and from a few deaf friends at school.
Fuller admits he is grateful for all of the support he is receiving. Though he would never want anyone to go through this, he offers this advice to families whose children suffer from leukemia or any long-term disease: “Always take time to accept comfort and words from people because you will need them. And if someone’s trying to help you, take it ... because this is a roller coaster ride.”
Contact Cortney L. Hill at 704-797-4249 or chill@salisburypost.com
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