WATCH: Thanks to the over $280,000 raised for his experimental cancer treatment, Delta teenager Kyle McConkey is set for a new round of treatment next month. Jennifer Palma reports.
“Mentally, it’s really difficult.”
That’s what Jo-Anne McConkey says about the agonizing process of getting her son Kyle well enough for experimental cancer treatment.
Kyle, a teenager from Delta with a rare form a leukemia, made headlines last year after over $280,000 was raised so his family could afford a new type of treatment being tested at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
READ MORE: U.S. treatment for teen with leukemia is possible thanks to donations
While they were hoping to begin the treatment in December, an infection kept him bedridden over the Christmas season. Then he developed graft-versus-host disease, months after a failed stem cell transplant.
Now he’s recovered to the point where a new date, March 3, has been set for treatment to start again.
“They’ll run some tests on him and interview for the next phase,” says Kyle’s dad Ross.
Assuming all goes according to plan, in late March the re-engineered T cells will be put back in Kyle’s body and start aggressively attacking the cancer cells.
His family knows there’s a long road ahead. But Kyle is still alive, still fighting – and they hope that next month will be a turning point in a years-long struggle.
“It’s like spinning plates. Keeping all the plates balanced at the same time. That’s what the doctors are doing,” says Jo-Anne.
– With files from Jennifer Palma
Comments