Still a teenager, Kyle McConkey has already endured two transplants in his ongoing battle with leukemia.
Now his Tsawwassen family are pinning their hopes on a last-ditch experimental treatment available only in Seattle.
The hitch: It’s not insured, and it will set back the family $250,000.
So a quickly climbing fundraising scheme is trying to raise enough money to see Kyle in Seattle Children’s Hospital Dec. 10 for perhaps his last chance at survival.
Kyle, now 18, was just another student at South Delta Secondary School until a fateful camping trip on the eve of his 16th birthday.
We were out camping, and he was feeling pain in his legs, father Ross McConkey told The Province. The next thing we knew we were in hospital.
Diagnosed with leukemia, a form of cancer that often afflicts the young, Kyle received a successful-for-a-time bone-marrow transplant from his younger brother.
After missing Grade 11 in his battle with the disease, Kyle recuperated enough to complete a limited course load and attend the SDSS graduation last June.
As his prognosis declined, Kyle was readied for a second transplant — this time involving stem cells — but that procedure was not a success.
Seemingly running out of options, Ross McConkey was contacted by the mother of a young leukemia sufferer who has now been cancer-free for 18 months after the Seattle experimental therapy.
“I’m ready to sell my house, but people are really stepping forward,” McConkey said of an online fundraising campaign that passed $70,000 Sunday afternoon. “Kyle’s drive to live is stronger than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s a risky thing to endure, but he’s willing to take the chance.”
The Seattle therapy uses the body's own immune system to battle leukemia. While it is experimental, Kyle has really no other option at this point.
After the last transplant, Kyle asked his oncologist (cancer doctor) how many months he had left.
The doctor said, How many months? You mean, How many weeks?
So in two weeks time, provided the family can come up with the required funds, Kyle will check in to Seattle Children's Hospital and hope for the best.
“I’m so proud of him,” said his father. “We re going to try everything. Just weeks ago, we thought there was no hope.”
