Kimie Metcalf - Health Ambassador to the World

Kimie Metcalf is a 7-year-old tour de force. In addition to all the things kids normally do, Kimie serves Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the Childhood Cancer Foundation as an advocate or ambassador. Earlier this year, the Orange County Inland Empire chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society sent her to Washington, D.C., to lobby for two bills, HR 460 and HR 1801, which would make cancer treatment more accessible. “These two bills would really help patients and their families,” Kimie says. As one of 250 individuals dispatched to the nation’s capital, Kimie met Congresswoman Gloria Negrete McLeod from California’s 35th District, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher from the 48th, and the chief of staff for Congressman Darrell Issa from the 49th. She also delivered a rousing pep talk to her fellow national ambassadors before the group set out for Capitol Hill. Kimie’s engaging, outgoing personality and personal health challenges make her an ideal spokesperson for children with cancer. Born 12 weeks premature as the surviving identical twin of a preterm pregnancy, she weighed a mere 2 pounds, 14 ounces at birth, and spent the first 65 days of life in a neonatal intensive care unit. She was treated for a hole in her heart, bleeding in her brain, and cerebral palsy. She also had multiple eye surgeries and is legally blind in her right eye. Her mom, Kristine Metcalf, credits a laboratory mistake, made when Kimie was 4, for alerting the family to the fact that Kimie also had cancer. “The lab tech that did the processing read the requisition slip wrong, did a peripheral smear of her blood, and noticed her white blood cells didn’t look normal,” Kristine remembers. Later that same day, Albert Kheradpour, MD, a pediatric hematology/oncology specialist at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, informed the family that Kimie had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL. Kristine wasn’t too concerned at first. As a nurse, she knew that the prognosis is good when ALL is properly treated. Besides, Kimie wasn’t acting sick. ”She wasn’t pale,” Kristine says. “She had tons of energy, never complained of pain, and didn’t have a single bruise.” Nevertheless, Dr. Kheradpour insisted on starting treatment right away, so Kimie was admitted to LLU Children’s Hospital the very next day. “She had a bone marrow biopsy, surgical placement of her port-a-cath, and started chemotherapy all on the same day,” Kristine recalls. For her part, Kimie hit it off with her new physician. “I like Dr. K,” she offers. “He wears wild ties, and rides kids’ bicycles around Children’s Hospital.” There was more bad news when the biopsy results came back: Kimie was diagnosed with a rare leukemia subtype known as AF4/MLL. Kristine’s optimism faded with this new diagnosis. “It has a very different prognosis than regular ALL,” she explains, noting that the likelihood of survival with AF4/MLL is between 30 and 40 percent. But something didn’t make sense. “It’s usually associated with infants, and requires a bone marrow transplant,” Kristine explains. “I said, ‘Well, Kimie’s not an infant so what do we do?’” What Dr. Kheradpour did was to put her on an aggressive course of treatment. “Within the first month,” Kristine reports, “Kimie’s cancer cells were switched to the off mode, also known as remission.” After a two-year therapeutic regimen, the illness remains in remission. Although the treatment ended 10 months ago, Dr. Kheradpour will monitor her progress monthly for one more year, and less frequently for another seven years. Because she wants to help other children with cancer, Kimie participates in two clinical trials to help researchers find effective treatments for leukemia. The first, known as ALL0232, is sponsored by the Children’s Oncology Group and the National Cancer Institute. It tests whether the chemotherapy drug dexamethasone works better than prednisone, and whether a combination of methotrexate and leucovorin works better than methotrexate alone. The second, ALL0331, studies different combination drug chemotherapy regimens and compares them to conventional treatments. Both tests are randomized phase III trials, which means they involve between 1,000 and 3,000 individuals who randomly receive either the drugs under study or a placebo. Because of her tireless advocacy, the Orange County Inland Empire chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (OCIE-LLS) named Kimie its 2013 Girl of the Year. This year she also received the first-ever Michelle Carew Legacy Award in honor of baseball legend Rod Carew’s daughter Michelle, who lost her battle to leukemia in 1996 at the age of 18. “Kimie has raised and donated approximately $58,000 over the past three years for the two organizations she holds close to her heart,” Kristine says of Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital Foundation and the OCIE-LLS. “She does this by holding monthly fundraisers and sponsoring Team Kimie Racing.” Team Kimie Racing, with its bright orange car, is doing very well this year. The team took top honors at Glen Helen Raceway in June. “Her car runs six times a year in the regional Lucas Oil Series,” Kristine explains, “and her famous Orange Booth, a traveling blood cancer awareness and donation booth, supplies information about different types of blood cancers, and offers leukemia awareness souvenirs for sale.” In her free time, Kimie loves hanging out with her family—which includes father Craig Metcalf and 9-year-old brother Reese Metcalf—and keeping an eye on her menagerie: dogs Snowy and Hachiko, Nerdle the Turtle, three chickens, two fish, one frog, and two ironclad beetles named Grayie and Blackie. As a health ambassador to the world, Kimie has some advice for kids who, like herself, live with significant health issues. “Cheer up,” she says. “Take a jog. Burn some energy. Play and do your favorite stuff. Do what makes you happy. Eat some soup with saltine crackers. If you don’t drink the soup, you won’t feel good.” Her final advisory echoes what she enjoyed on her recent trip to Washington. “Get plenty of rest,” she concludes. “Do not watch TV for hours; watch DVDs instead. Order room service—soup, salad, and candy!”