Riding with strangers on a road to recovery

VOLUNTEERS RESPONDED Leukemia in remission, Charles woman says

Katie Haile was five months pregnant and had two young boys and a husband, a full-time job and a part-time job, so it wasn't surprising that she was tired. But then she noticed red spots on her legs and numbness in her face, and she reluctantly followed her doctor's orders and went to the emergency room.

The diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in February was the start of a painful and difficult stretch, but also of an outpouring of help from friends, family members and strangers for a young Charles County woman who has regularly served her community.

Haile, 27, is a Port Tobacco resident. She said she recalls, as a child, helping her mother during visits to the senior center. More recently, she has been an active member of the Worship Center in Bryans Road and a fundraiser for a branch of the March of Dimes.

Within a few days of her February trip to the emergency room, Haile was told that she had leukemia and that her baby could not survive the necessary treatments.

"I would have never gone to the hospital if I wasn't pregnant. What woman goes to the hospital for being tired?" Haile said. "Moms don't get a break. . . . A mom has to keep going at all times, no matter how bad they feel."

"If I had not come in when I did, I maybe would have lived another couple of months," she said. "As much as I loved my baby, I really saw it as God gave me that baby to get me to the hospital to save my life. I have two other beautiful boys that need me."

Haile said she is in remission and nearing the end of chemotherapy treatments in Baltimore.

"Stubbornness also runs in the family," said Carol Davis, Haile's mother. "She has a determination that can't be smashed."

With that fighting attitude, Haile has kept on. And she has had help from her friends and from a few strangers, too.

Haile had to go to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore at least twice a week for treatments. She was too weak to drive and didn't have a vehicle to get her to the appointments, anyway.

"There are times where she has been up there four days a week," her mother said. "I want to be doing it every day, but I can't. If I lose my job, I lose everything."

Haile's father and other family members made the trip with her, but sometimes no one was available. Davis, a planner in the Charles County Sheriff's Office, posted a plea for help on her agency's bulletin board.