Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990 TAG: 9004180356
SECTION: A-1 NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SHERYL STOLBERG THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
At seven weeks, she was diagnosed with retinoblastoma - a cancerous tumor of the eye. Her right eye was removed shortly thereafter. At 2 1/2, she lost the other eye. After a year of intensive chemotherapy and radiation, another cancerous tumor appeared, this one near her brain.
Her cancer has now spread into her bone marrow, her spinal fluid and her lymph glands. Her doctors say she does not have much longer to live.
But Kati, who has lived at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles for the past six months (and on and off for most of her life) is by all accounts a wondrous child - ebullient and friendly with a crackerjack wit, mature beyond her years and more accepting of her fate than even her own family.
Full of love and full of life, she has charmed the hospital staff, from her doctors to the public relations people to the housekeeper, a close friend even though the two speak different languages.
Those who work on floor 4W have become accustomed to the sight of the little girl playing make-believe in the hallway, wandering about in way-too-big size eight red shoes, pretending to be Dorothy from the "Wizard of Oz" and having the time of her life even though she is fully aware that her life may soon be over.
"She's amazing," said nurse Cammie Lancaster, who has known Kati for two years. "If people could only view the world the way Kati views it. With Kati, everything is magical. She's always reaching out to other people. She just radiates love."
And so it came as no surprise at Children's Hospital that when the Make-a-Wish Foundation offered to fulfill her fantasy, Kati did not do what most children do. She did not choose to visit Disneyland, or meet a celebrity or take a trip to Hawaii - even though her parents told her she could have any one of these things.
Instead, she simply asked for a party. She wanted it at the hospital, with the staff by her side. And with pizza - even though she cannot eat solid food anymore. "I like parties," she explained, when asked about her decision. "I love the hospital."
And at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Kati had her party. It was a poignant affair; more than a few of the guests had tears in their eyes. But it was also a typical, if a little bit elaborate, kids party - colored balloons, toys, a clown, a scrapbook for the guests to sign, a cake that depicted the Emerald City of Oz and dozens and dozens of friends and admirers who came to pay homage to the little girl who has stolen the heart of Children's Hospital.
"They almost need two scrapbooks, she's got so many friends" said Patty Kelly, a special education teacher who works at the hospital, as she and about a dozen others waited in line to sign.
"She's an incredible little girl," said Barbara Edelman, who as the hospital's tumor registrar is required to report all cases of cancer to the state of California. "She recognizes people by voice. I can walk into the room and she knows who I am just by my saying, `Hi Kati.' "
According to Dr. Stuart Seigel, chief of the Oncology and Hematology Division at Children's Hospital, Kati's disease, retinoblastoma, is the most common form of eye tumor in children but is still relatively rare. It accounts for about 1 percent of all cancers in children, he said.
In Kati's case, Siegel said, the cancer is particularly vicious and is no longer responding to treatment.
Yet Kati does not appear to be depressed - a fact her doctor finds remarkable. "While it may be doing things to her physically," Siegel said, "it has not done anything to her spirit or her intellect."
But Tuesday, instead of prancing up and down the hospital corridor as she normally does, she was lying in a buggy, ordering her father to wheel her about. Her condition has deteriorated considerably within the past few days, and Glenn Sleeman explained that his daughter had been unable to walk since the weekend.
When a neurologist appeared and told her he wanted to check her legs and feet, Kati's retort was quick: "You're not gonna do nothin' to me are you?" When those around her laughed, she issued a firm instruction: "Don't laugh. It gives me a headache."
When the doctor tried to force her to stand, she was unusually uncooperative. But not more than a half an hour later, after her mother had dressed in her pink satin party dress and pink sparkled slippers, she did something typically Kati.
"I want to walk," she declared. And she did - almost all the way to her party.
Siegel and others credit Kati's pluck and her positive outlook to her parents. Although the family makes its home in San Bernardino, since January Kathy Sleeman has lived in her daughter's room in the hospital, amid electronic monitors and sealed-off chambers and intravenous equipment.
"She's taught me so much, more than I have ever learned in my whole life and I'm very thankful for it," she said. "I feel like I'm the luckiest mother in the whole world."
The Sleemans decided long ago to be open with Kati about her illness and its prognosis. Now, as she nears the end of her life, Kati has been talking more and more frequently about heaven.
Because she cannot see, touch means a lot to Kati, and one of her favorite things to do is to snuggle close to her mother and rub Kathy's ear. Not long ago, her mother said, the little girl remarked upon that habit:
"She said that when she's in heaven and I feel a tickle in my ear, it will be her."
by CNB