Iowa City girl bravely faces cancer a 5th time

Ten-year-old Olivia “Livee” Kellicut's life has been filled with some pretty frightening numbers.

She's had hundreds of shots, 50 spinal taps and four “central lines” in her chest, so doctors can shoot medication into her bloodstream. All in less than six years. She's had numerous chemotherapy treatments - the heavy, intense seven-day treatments her mom calls “the big guns” - and a bone-marrow transplant.

Livee is a four-time cancer survivor but is now back in “her” room in the pediatric wing at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, recovering from yet more chemotherapy, awaiting one more round and, hopefully, a stem cell transplant. The acute myeloid leukemia is back.

Because of the intensity of the chemotherapy and the way it has broken down Livee's immune system, she has been in isolation since early October, with only a select few allowed to enter her room wearing masks.

Yet she smiles.

“If I could be half the person she is ... she just doesn't let things bother her anymore,” said Megan Reck of Fairfax, a virtual stranger who coordinated a recent benefit to send Livee and her parents back to Disney World, a trip they first took through the Make-A-Wish Foundation after Livee was diagnosed at age 4-1/2.

“She's smiling, outgoing,” Reck said. “Here she is, at the hospital having chemo, and she's alert, bright-eyed and smiling.”

That's just who Livee is, said her mom, Roberta Ogden-Kellicut of Iowa City.

When she's well, Livee goes to school at Lucas Elementary in Iowa City. She loves art. Her favorite color is green.

Her cancer had been in remission for 3-1/2 years following a bone-marrow transplant. Then her fingers went numb. Still, her mother said, no one thought cancer.

“We'd been sailing along for more than three years, and everything was fine,” she said. “Then we get this.”

The numbing was caused by a mass of white cells sitting on a nerve.

“She just looked up at me and asked what was happening, so I had to tell her that the cancer was being mean again and had come back,” her mother said. “Then she just looked up at me and said, ‘Mom, I can do this.' ”

It's that strength and determination that keeps Ogden-Kellicut believing her daughter's illness may have a greater purpose.

There are other signs, her mom adds. Like the emotional support from those she hardly knows, such as Reck, whose husband works with Livee's dad, Dave Kellicut, and the nearly 200 people who attended the Oct. 23 benefit.

Especially heartening is the fact that Livee's dad was a perfect match for his daughter's bone-marrow transplant almost four years ago, matching all six criteria needed. Now, he's proven to be a perfect 10-point match for Livee's stem cell transplant.

“Parents are generally a one-in-a-million match, and here he's matched twice,” Ogden-Kellicut said. “That's got to mean something.”