Kiley's courage
KILEY IS all smiles with dad DJ and sister Danielle, 11, when the RE/MAX American Dream Properties staff and friends surprised her with a brand new Barbie Jeep with personalized license plates and an FM radio at their office in south Kalispell Friday evening before a ride in the RE/MAX balloon. Allison Money/Daily Inter Lake
GRANDMA DONNA, sister Danielle, 11, and dad DJ watch Kiley, 6, (clockwise from right) as Randi Cogburn, Kiley's nurse at the KRMC Outpatient Infusion, locates the mediport in her chest before sterilizing the area to draw blood prior to treatment Wednesday morning. Allison Money/Daily Inter Lake
KILEY HEFFNER pulls her thread taut around a crochet hook while waiting for blood test results and lunch at Kalispell Regional Medical Center's outpatient infusion center Wednesday morning. Allison Money/Daily Inter Lake
KILEY TRIES to hold back tears as she has blood drawn out of the mediport in her chest in order to check her blood cell counts before treatment begins at Kalispell Regional Medical Center's Outpatient Infusion Wednesday morning. Allison Money/Daily Inter Lake
Family rallies to care for 6-year-old leukemia patient
She draws you in with eyes the color of a deep glacial lake.
And if that doesn't get you, she throws her head back and laughs - a down-to-the-toes giggle that shakes her small body, with a grin that exposes the 6-year-old's missing front teeth. Within minutes she has charmed you completely.
She's the kind of endearing, precocious little girl that a father would go to the ends of the Earth to heal. He'd give up his job, sell all of his tools and expendable possessions and scrounge odd jobs for gas money to drive her back and forth to chemotherapy treatments.
That's exactly what DJ Heffner of Dayton has done to help his daughter, Kiley Renee, battle acute lymphoblastic leukemia. They're about eight months into her treatment, with nearly two years left, the experts have calculated.
In the parking lot of Kalispell Regional Medical Center, outside the Infusion Center where Kiley is getting treatment that day, DJ contemplates the road ahead and wonders where he will get the money to buy new tires for an aging Chevy Silverado whose low gas mileage has become an albatross. The Whitefish Credit Union account set up in his daughter's name has a balance of $25.
"In six weeks I spent $2,300 in fuel," he says wearily. From the family's home in Dayton, it's a 70-mile round trip, and some weeks there are daily trips back and forth to Kalispell. And there are the trips to The Children's Hospital in Denver, too.
Within five weeks or so she'll be back in Denver.
The Dayton School hosted a taco feed to raise gas money and DJ finds odd jobs such as mowing lawns to get by. He has worked nine days in the past eight months at his old job in logging. And he's filled out 36 job applications for part-time work, but when prospective employers learn about the erratic schedule that comes with caring for a sick child, they're not interested.
Of course there's no turning back once the treatment begins.
Like other parents who come to know their child's disease so intimately, DJ rattles off numbers for acceptable blood counts and all the other statistics that accompany this cancer of the white blood cells. He knows more than he ever cares to about leukemia.
KILEY HAD many of the telltale symptoms of her disease - frequent and unexplained fevers, excessive and unexplained bruising and general fatigue.
"She looked pale," DJ recalled. "Even the school 'staff] recognized things weren't right."
Kiley rallied to make it through the Christmas play at Dayton School last year, even as her condition was worsening.
A doctor in Polson shrugged off the symptoms as perhaps the same viral illness other family members had had, but by Dec. 28 she was in the emergency room at Kalispell Regional.
"Within 30 minutes they gave us the news' about Kiley's diagnosis, DJ said. The next day, Flight for Life flew Kiley to the Denver hospital where she would spend the next five weeks, and the local Wings program helped them with living expenses.
Kiley's mother, Gena, is divorced from DJ and lives out of state. She was able to spend time with her daughter in Denver and at Dayton for awhile, but is no longer involved in the day-to-day care for Kiley. Right now, it's DJ, his older daughter, Danielle, 11, his brother Jason and wife Kristy, and his parents, Jerry and Donna Heffner.
On this particular day, Donna and Danielle are keeping Kiley company at the Infusion Center. Danielle, quiet but protective of her younger sister, is a master at keeping Kiley preoccupied and focused on things other than the intensity of the treatment. They play thumb war and a finger-squeezing game that makes Kiley laugh.
Donna is teaching Kiley how to crochet and brings out a crochet hook and some string as she sits at her granddaughter's bedside.
"I've been crocheting since I was 5," Kiley says with a certain worldliness that reveals a girl wise beyond her years.
When it's time for the hospital technicians to access the mediport in Kiley's chest, she stretches out both arms, signaling it's time for her father and grandmother to don their face masks and take her hands as the treatment begins.
The laughter is gone in an instant.
"Daddy, it hurts," she cries.
DJ sings her favorite song, "Hush, Little Baby," quietly close to her ear, but by now she is sobbing and it is heart-wrenching.
But before long Danielle has worked her magic and Kiley is laughing through her tears.
They're a team. When Kiley's hair began falling out from the cancer treatment, her father shaved his head in solidarity with his bald daughter.
"She's way smarter than a 6-year-old," he said. "This girl knows all of her medications, just by the taste of them."
In between doctor visits, there were glimpses of a normal summer. Kiley played with her three chickens, Poof, Shadow and Flapper, and the family's Shi Tzu, Sugar.
"Grandma's spoiled Sugar so she spends most of her time at their house," Kiley announced.
On a good day, the only evidence there's anything wrong with Kiley is her lack of hair. But bad days can be life-threatening.
"We almost lost her six weeks ago," her father quietly confides.
The stark reality of his daughter's disease is always there. Not long ago, a young girl with the same kind of leukemia, who befriended Kiley and 'showed her the ropes' around The Children's Hospital, died from complications of an infection.
DJ coaxes Kiley to talk about her friend. It'll help if she talks about it, he believes, but Kiley doesn't want any part of it at first. Little by little, though, she joins the conversation.
KILEY GOT some special treatment last week from the staff at RE/MAX American Dream Properties, who made a couple of the little girl's dreams come true. They took her for a hot-air balloon ride in the RE/MAX balloon and Darren Hall, a real-estate agent who's also a pilot, planned to take her for a plane ride.
The entire staff is chipping in to buy Kiley something else she wants: a Barbie Jeep.
Denise Flanigan-Csikasz, office manager for RE/MAX American Dream Properties, met Kiley a while back and instantly was taken with her.
"She's a feisty spirit to be reckoned with and she really touched my heart," Flanigan-Csikasz said. "As ill as she's been, her requests were so small."
Diane Hansen, who along with her husband, Nick, are broker-owners of the RE/MAX office, said it's all about "putting a smile on her face."
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com
How you can help
An account for Kiley Heffner has been set up at Whitefish Credit Union. Her father, DJ Heffner, is the trustee for the account.
Donations can be made at any Whitefish Credit Union office.