Mother From Sudbury in Fight for Her Life

"The thing that gets me is I'm 38 years old. I'm healthy. I have a healthy weight, I'm a healthy eater. And in just one day ... poof."

That's how Kate King describes her life, right up until a Saturday morning this past June when she found herself on her kitchen floor, passed out for three hours from a seizure.

The Sudbury native and mother of 5-year-old daughter Madeline, who are now living in Orlando, Fla., hadn't felt right days leading up to the seizure. A visit to her doctor at MD Andersen provided no answers as she continued to feel "like there was this gray cloud over me."

After waking up from the seizure, she went back to the hospital. Doctors performed a spinal tap, CT scans, MRIs and a brain biopsy, before finally diagnosing her with a malignant, grade II astrocytoma brain tumor.

"It's rare for someone my age," King says from her Orlando apartment. "There's no particular reason why this happened. Now I'm looking at my options."

According to Cedars-Sinai, astrocytoma tumors are a form of glioma with star-shaped cells. They often grow very slowly or not at all for long periods of time. Therefore, close observation rather than treatment is possible in some cases (especially ones associated with neurofibromatosis ).

A grade II astrocytoma is also called low-grade astrocytoma or diffuse astrocytoma and is usually an infiltrating tumor, according to webmd.com. This tumor grows relatively slowly and usually does not have well-defined borders. It occurs most often in adults between the ages of 20 and 40. 

King said she is not in a good frame of mind to research the disease herself. Instead, at the advice of her ex-mother-in-law who is a cancer survivor herself, she started an online journal at caringbridge.org.

That journal allowed her to reconnect with an old Sudbury friend, Lisa Doherty, who is a nurse practitioner for Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

"She's just a super nice, wonderful, strong woman who's been through a lot," Dohtery says of King. "She has a strong will to live and is a good mom ... a very caring and giving person."

King sent her files to Doherty, who shared them with doctors at Dana-Farber.

"I'm doing more testing," Kings says, "and I'll probably get a third opinion. Apparently with this type of tumor, there is no right or wrong way to go."

The location of the tumor in her brain is the left frontal lobe. Doctors told her the tumor, which is the size of a plum, had infiltrated her brain with a growth rate of 8-10 percent. She is taking medicine to help counteract the seizures.

"It's one of worst areas, no matter which direction it grows," King was told. "I'm pretty much screwed. It will affect speech, or memory, or control of my body. I'm in trouble. What's the best way that's going to buy me the most amount of time for an unbelievable life with my daughter?"

Because of the seizure, King was told to stop driving. The commercial real estate agent also can't work anymore. Doctors told her the stress from her job could enhance the tumor.

"Every doctor has said your job is too stressful and I need to focus on my health and keeping my mind quiet, which is nearly impossible," she says. "I'm working on that."

Her next appointment is today (Aug. 14) at Winter Park, where she will have a functional MRI done to test her brain. Doctors will ask her to tell a joke, complete a math problem, smile, among other things, to see which parts of her brain are needed to complete those tasks.

"Our hope is the MRI shows it's not affecting a significant portion of her functioning (area)," Doherty says. "If there is enough of the tumor that is not affecting (that area), meaning we can remove more than half, it will better help with the prognosis. We can't take out pieces she's using now. If they are removed, then she be significantly impaired."

Doherty thinks Dana-Farber should have the results in about a day.

Until a decision is made, King is trying to focus on quality time with Madeline. She worries what may happen and doesn't want to subject her daughter to any traumatic visions.

"I'd rather have five amazing years (with my daughter) than be here for 15 or longer and not be me," she says, explaining how she watched her father die of bone marrow cancer when she was 15. "I have no intentions of being on this earth as a vegetable. I'm not going to do it. I don't want to have my 5-year-old watch me get sick. I don't want her to look at me and say, 'Gosh, you look like my mom but you don't act like my mom.' But Dana-Farber says surgery is possible."

If King decides for surgery, it will happen rather soon. But she says she needs assurance that if she has to come back to Boston for the surgery, it will be worthwhile.

"She's starting kindergarten, she has her first wiggly tooth ... I just can stomach leaving her but I need to know I'll come back healthier and stronger," she says of Madeline while fighting back the tears. "If the risk is too great then it's not ... I just can't do it." 

"The whole donation thing I'm not comfortable with," she says. "Obviously I need to stay in my apartment and support my daughter, but it makes me very uncomfortable because I'm still me and I wish I could get back in my car and go to work." 

"I'm praying it's as accurate as the technology that Dana-Farber has to help determine whether surgery is worth it," she says. "Unless they can remove 90 percent, it's not worth the risk. I have to figure out the best path that will buy me the most amount of time with my daughter, with me still being me. I'm hoping for some clarity soon."