One-in-a-million girl finds hero at home

There is a miniature residence within the walls of the Blankenship house at 1006 E. Second St. in Scott City. It's a place where 2-year-old Kristan Blankenship mixes her imagination with real memories of her turbulent past that she doesn't yet seem to fully understand.

It's a plastic house standing less than a foot tall in the middle of the Blankenships' living room carpet. Inside live three plastic dolls -- Mommy and two children, a girl named Morgan and a boy, Logan.

This tiny family spends a majority of its time laying idly in the house as the maestro of its make-believe lives, Kristan, divides her short attention span between them and her other favorite toys as she bounces around the house. But right now she's fixed on them.

"They're driving to St. Louis," says Kristan, rocking anxiously on her knees as she seats them in their little green convertible.

But she and her real family -- including mother Lee Ann Blankenship, and her full-size older brother and sister Logan and Morgan -- have made countless trips to the real city over the past two years. She remembers why.

"I was sick yesterday," she explains, holding up the little Logan doll.

"But Logan be my donor."

"Yesterday" actually began at the end of May 2002, just seven and half months after Kristan was born. She was diagnosed with a rare disease that crippled her immune system and threatened her young life. Her only chance of survival was a bone marrow transplant from her then 4-year-old brother, Logan.

Sept. 26, 2004, marked the second anniversary of Kristan's successful surgery. The Blankenships have come to celebrate the day as her re-birthday.

"I got some of Logan's blood," Kristan says, running her fingers through her long curly hair. "Now I'm not sick." Worried mother Lee Ann Blankenship first became concerned that May because of a fever.

Still an infant, Kristan was consistently running a temperature around 102 degrees Fahrenheit over a six-day span. Low blood counts led Kristan's pediatrician to initially diagnose her with cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a common virus that is not considered serious.

But on June 5, Kristan suffered a relapse that eventually led to her being checked into St. Louis Children's Hospital for further testing.

Kristan's fever persisted and she became lethargic and weak. Her liver and spleen were grossly enlarged, her blood counts still gravely low. She was swollen and very lethargic. Her doctors deemed that she was dangerously susceptible to infection, yet over the next week, none of them could place a precise diagnosis. Except one doctor.

Dr. William Grossman saw the child and insisted she be tested for the rare immune-deficiency disorder known as Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) that affects only one person out of every 1.2 million. He was right.

HLH is a disease that causes the bone marrow to produce an excess of cells, which causes inflammation and eventually penetrates and accumulates in healthy tissue and damages organs. If left untreated, it has a 90 percent mortality rate. The only known cure is a bone marrow transplant.

Kristan was immediately put on antibiotics, followed by intensive chemotherapy and steroids. On June 25, after 17 days in the hospital, Kristan was sent home.

But now that home had to be transformed into a quarantine zone to protect Kristan.

Lee Ann Blankenship stayed home, never leaving the house so she could care for Kristan and administer her vast assortment of medication. She orally fed her daughter a cocktail of syrups and pills, and injected medicine into a broviac tube that was connected directly to her heart. These medications and the steroids made Kristan swollen and weak.

The rest of the family was affected too.

Kristan's older sister Morgan, 6, and her brother Logan, 4, were kept inside, away from their friends and from playing outdoors so they wouldn't bring home germs. Gallon jugs of Germ-X antiseptic lotion were kept by the door for repeated application to hands, bodies and items brought in from the outside.

Kristan's father, Dennis Blankenship, continued to work. He'd bring home groceries and anything the family might need. But upon his return home from work, he immediately showered and wrung his hands in Germ-X.

One night, Logan got fed up.

"He came up to me and said, 'Mom, I'm sick and tired of Kristan,'" Lee Ann Blankenship said.

"'Don't say that about your sister, Logan. That's despicable,'"

"'I'm sick of her being so sick all the time,'"

Then she said Logan looked up and said, "God, please help me help Kristan get better."

Although she wouldn't tell him yet, his mother knew he'd get his chance.

'Our little hero'

What Lee Ann Blankenship wasn't telling Logan was that of Kristan's family that had been tested as possible donors for her bone marrow transplant, he was the only one who was a perfect match. She had decided not to tell him exactly what he would have to do or go through for fear of scaring him. He was his sister's only real hope.

While Kristan was prepped by her medication for her upcoming surgery, Lee Ann Blankenship would try to mentally prepare Logan for what he would endure, without telling exactly what would happen. She'd play doctor with him, laying him down and pretending to put him under anesthesia.

"Your sister needs your good cells to fight the bad guys," she'd tell him.

Finally on Sept. 16,it was time to go back to St. Louis, starting with eight days of continuous chemotherapy for Kristan. This destroyed her entire immune system in order to make way for the new one she would receive. It made her vulnerable to all kinds of bacteria, even some within her own body.

Lee Ann Blankenship remembers those eight days as some of the hardest. The chemo made Kristan very sick, with fevers up to 105 degrees, and heart rates as fast as 225 beats per minute. She was swollen almost beyond recognition, her hair had fallen out. Her platelet count dropped virtually to zero, causing uncontrollable bleeding from her nose and sores that had formed on her mouth. She was hooked to a number of machines and monitors that she would not be separated from for over a month.

On Sept. 26, while Kristan waited one hospital floor above him, Logan entered the operating room where doctors would extract 300 cubic centimeters of bone marrow from his hip, 200 of which would go into his baby sister. The procedure took 45 minutes. His parents remember his bravery, calling him "our little hero." Logan remembers it as his brotherly duty.

"I don't really know what I was thinking," a 6-year old Logan later recalled. "I had to do it, anyway. I gave her my blood and prayed for her."

After the bone marrow transplant, the Blankenship family had to hold its breath to see if it would work. Dr. Grossman said the two chief worries in such cases are the possibility that her cells would reject the new bone marrow or that the new bone marrow might attack her body. Her parents waited with her in isolation for the next 35 days.

On day 30, doctors deemed that the transplant was 100 percent engrafted. The surgery was an initial success. But Kristan stayed in the hospital and her parents stayed in a hotel room in St. Louis until Christmas 2002.

Long road to recovery

Kristan's doll family has returned from its trip to St. Louis and is now sleeping in its little plastic house as Kristan has now run off to play with her stuffed Pooh Bear.

With her curly hair curtaining her bright rosy face, she radiates the same energy of any normal 2-year old. Grossman said she now has the same chances of survival that any normal child has. She just recently scaled back her weekly follow-up visits to one every six months.

Her family can express little but gratefulness watching their daughter and sister run around the house and playing. They are grateful to the doctors who treated her, to the community that prayed for and supported Kristan, to God for his grace, and especially, to their hero, Logan.

Logan was just being a big brother.

"When the other kids say she's too small, I'll let her play Rescue Heroes or Batman with us," Logan says, sitting beside his mother. Watching his sister play, he says he takes care of all of his sisters - including a 3-month old healthy baby girl named Addison - like a good brother should.

Like a good sister, Kristan honors her older brother by naming one of her favorite toys after him. Having returned momentarily to the doll house to awake her little family. She quickly puts them back in their green convertible. This time Logan, Morgan and Mommy are going to Disney World to celebrate their maestro's third birthday at the end of September. It represents the real trip Kristan and her family will make to the real Disney World in Orlando, Fla., thanks to the Make A Wish Foundation.

Kristan said she's excited to meet Mickey Mouse, excited to show him her Pooh Bear, but most of all, excited that her "donor" gets to go along.

Logan is happy for his sister, too. He still doesn't seem to realize quite the impact he's had on her life, but he knows he did what he could to help her. After all, that's what he says big brothers do.

"When I gave her my blood, it made her better," Logan says. "It's because we have the same blood."

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137