Our lives were shattered on Wednesday (3/18) when our best friends Krysta and Kevin’s sweet girl, Kendall, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)
We are absolutely devastated and heartbroken—but if there’s one thing we know, it’s how strong Kendall is, and how strong Krysta and Kevin’s love is for their sweet girl. With the love, prayers, and support from our incredible community, we know she is going to fight this with everything she has.
Please keep Krysta, Kevin, Kendall, and Keelyn in your thoughts and prayers as they begin this incredibly difficult journey.
Right now, their focus is on being by Kendall’s side through treatments and long hospital days. As you can imagine, this brings not only emotional strain, but also financial challenges—from medical expenses and travel to meals and time away from work.
We would do anything for this family and hope to alleviate as much of the burden as we can.
For those asking how to help, we’ve created this site to support them during this time. Donations will go toward medical costs, hospital stays, travel, and everyday living expenses.
We are also collecting:
• 🍽️ Door Dash or meal delivery gift cards for long hospital days
• 🛒 Grocery gift cards (Safeway, etc.) or gas cards for frequent drives to and from Sacramento
• 🎨 Mess-free crafts or small comfort items to help bring Kendall moments of joy during her hospital stay
Every prayer, share, donation, and act of kindness truly means more than words can express.
Kendall, we love you so much. We miss you and can’t wait to have you back home. 💕
Here are some words from Krysta and Kevin to tell more about Kendall’s story:
On March 18th, our lives changed forever. Kendall had been having vague symptoms for a few weeks… it started with enlarged lymph nodes, belly pain, arm and leg pain. She had low grade fevers for a few days. I took her to her primary care doctor Monday who ordered an ultrasound for the lymph nodes and blood work. On Tuesday I started noticing bruising behind her arms and legs and then petechiae spots over her body. On Wednesday we made a trip to the ER, which showed her Platelets were 9,000, along with anemia, a high white blood cell count and positive blasts. Her abdomen ultrasound showed an enlarged spleen and liver- all concerning for leukemia. We were transferred to Sutter Med Center in Sacramento Wednesday night and met with a Pediatric Hospitalist, who sat me and Kevin’s mom down to tell us Kendall has leukemia, and we would be meeting with an Oncologist to get a bone marrow biopsy with chemo the following day. The biopsy confirmed that Kendall has B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Over the next few days we met with the Oncology team to discuss her treatment plan moving forward. This particular leukemia is the most common childhood cancer and has a high 5 year survival rate of 90-95%, but will require 2.5 years of chemotherapy, treatments, infusions, and procedures. The first phase is called “induction”, which is 28 days of steroids along with sessions of intense chemotherapy both IV and through the spine during lumbar punctures. The consolidation phase will vary depending on how she responds to treatment but approximately 6 or so months. Then we move into maintenance phase which will be about 2 years to keep her in remission. We will be spending many days the next 2.5 years driving to and from appointments in Sacramento.
Though our “new normal” is about to shift for our new family of four, Kendall is a brave, resilient little girl, and I know she won’t let this diagnosis dim her light. Most days she doesn’t feel good from the cancer itself and the chemo, but she still continues to make Kevin and I laugh a little bit every day in the hospital. The days may feel heavy and long right now, but we look forward to the day where we can say Kendall is CANCER FREE.
Thank you to everyone for all the thoughts, prayers and support. With all of our friends, family and community by our side, we can continue cheering Kendall on!
-Kevin and Krysta
#BraveLikeKendall
