Hope for Nikki

After Nikki’s initial diagnosis, she was on a variety of different medications designed specifically for CML.   Nikki went through four medications in the first seven years because her body became resistant to each one and her body would not remain in remission. 

Nikki lives in Nevada which is a state that unfortunately has no medical facilities performing bone marrow transplants, so she was referred to Banner Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona.  In the hopes of finding a suitable donor for a bone marrow transplant her brother was tested and found to be a 50% match while her sister was not able to be tested due to her own prior thyroid cancer at the age of nineteen.  Within the international donor bank one 100% match was found; an anonymous and selfless 57 year old man.   


Nikki took family medical leave from work, borrowed sick days from the school district's sick leave bank and underwent a wave of aggressive chemotherapy treatments, a bone marrow transplant, and spent over a month in the hospital in Tucson.  Nikki showed an impressive amount of bravery and grit, walking laps each day around the hospital ward with her family members to build up her strength.  Post-transplant, she was required to stay in Tucson for 100 days, visiting the Cancer Center daily at first, then three times a week, then twice a week. 


She developed  graft versus host disease, where the new cells and the old cells were fighting each other and ended up back in the hospital for a week on massive doses of steroids.  The GVHD attacked her body more than once and has left lasting issues with Nikki's bones due to the use of steroids which were necessary to save her life.  As a result, she now has avascular necrosis, tiny breaks in her bones, from lack of blood flow to the bones.  This was just one more extra consequence Nikki has had to deal with during her healing process.  Nikki was required to stay home and work from home when she returned from Tucson because her immune system was still so compromised.  

We were so thankful after a long road to recovery that Nikki's body went into remission and she could finally return to living her life and return to her passion... teaching in the fall of 2017!   She celebrated a year of being cancer free on June 30, 2017 and 2 years on June 30, 2018. 

Where her journey has taken her now

A recent visit to Tucson for her 2 year check up and a bone marrow biopsy revealed that her Chronic Myeloid Leukemia has returned.  Although Nikki's body fought her disease,  her body has relapsed and her Leukemia has returned. Her treatment has required immediate return to a drug to bring her levels down and hopefully into cytogenetic remission.  Additionally, Nikki will need to undergo lymphocyte infusions to hopefully push her back into full remission.  

Thankfully her previous donor is still healthy and willing to donate lymphocytes, white blood cells, for infusions that she will undergo in Tucson.  Once again, she will need to take leave from work, mostly unpaid, and will remain in treatment there for a minimum of 3 months. 

The doctors only give this a 30% chance of success because of the severity of her CML.  If it is unsuccessful, she will begin again with chemotherapy and the process of finding a new donor for a 2nd bone marrow transplant which will result in an additional 4 months stay in Tucson for Nikki and her family.  

How can we help?

So many within her community have expressed an overwhelming need to unite and raise funds in order to help Nikki and her husband Bailey manage the ongoing cost of medical expenses, deductibles and temporary housing and travel requirements associated with these critical and necessary treatments. 

In the middle of Nikki's difficulty lies an opportunity for others to support her by donating any dollar amount possible so that we may help Nikki and her family focus on her journey to remission and not on the financial burden of her treatment and care. 

Thank you for allowing us to share Nikki’s story, no act of kindness, no matter how small,  is ever wasted.