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Cancer, years of treatment and painful procedures doesn't deter recent Cambria graduate

Tribune - 6/19/2018

June 19--Kellie Wolfe was the 2018 valedictorian at Leffingwell High School, but those honors were only a sliver of what she's already accomplished in her short life.

She's proven to family, friends and teachers -- and most importantly to herself -- that she's got what it takes to achieve just about any goal she chooses.

The 19-year-old has battled osteosarcoma with a 3.5-inch cancerous tumor on her thighbone, endured punishing chemotherapy for months and prevailed over drastic joint-replacement and limb-salvage surgery. She's gone through more than a year of physical therapy -- so far -- and finished four years of high school in three while also racking up a semester of credits at Cuesta College this spring.

At Leffingwell's graduation ceremony June 6, retired U.S. Army Col. Maureen Robles-Wilson, representing American Legion Post No. 432, spoke about overcoming obstacles, saying the grads should "dream big and never quit... The person on this stage who really demonstrated that personal courage this year is Kellie Wolfe."

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Robles-Wilson then presented Wolfe with the Legion's $500 scholarship, part of the $4,500 in awards she received at graduation. She was also one of six grads awarded a $1,000 scholarship by the Lions Club of Cambria.

Grant Phillips, who taught Wolfe at Leffingwell, described her as "a wonderful, very responsible, respectful young woman... She worked in the community, at the district office, at Gym One (physical therapy, where she works) and helps her father at the farmer's market. She's very involved in the community."

"When Kellie came to us in the beginning of her junior year, she literally had seven credits," he said, adding that it takes 270 credits to graduate from Leffingwell, which he called a substantially higher requirement than at most other alternative high schools and even some traditional high schools.

Her dad, Michael Wolfe, works at Cookie Crock Market in Morro Bay and raises produce on the McCall ranch. He tends to be understandably emotional about and proud of his daughter and how she's triumphed over the many challenges she's faced.

And he knows she didn't accomplish all that alone.

"I want to thank the entire community for doing what Cambria is known for ... gathering around and supporting those in need," he posted on Facebook the day after her graduation. "Kellie is where she's at now in a large part thanks to the loving kindness of its (Cambria's) citizens. As her father and a single parent, I will forever be in your debt. "

Wolfe won't be officially out of the medical woods until she's been cancer free for five years, she said. But she and her dad are optimistically confident.

The illness

Right before the start of Wolfe's freshman year in 2013, the then 14-year-old active outdoorswoman and athlete had an MRI that proved she was, indeed, very ill.

"The entire month of August, something just hadn't felt right," she said.

Wracked with pain, "my knee really hurt," she said.

Wolfe had a 3.1-inch tumor, osteosarcoma, on her right thighbone.

Two weeks later, Dr. Lawrence Menendez, one of the leading orthopedic surgeons in the nation who practices at the Keck Medical Center of USC, launched what would be two excruciatingly aggressive years of treatment, Wolfe recalled.

Then living with her mother in Long Beach, Wolfe was able to take her chemotherapy home every day rather than stay in the hospital around the clock. That meant daily trips from Long Beach in metropolitan traffic, often agonizing for someone who was violently ill and in pain from round-the-clock chemo.

By November, the 5-foot-5-inch tall teen had lost nearly 30 pounds and was desperately ill.

On Jan. 14, 2014, surgeons did a seven-hour procedure, including total knee replacement and insertion of a 16-centimeter cobalt steel rod to replace part of her femur.

"When I woke up, I had 57 staples running down my leg. I almost passed out seeing it," Wolfe recalled with a shiver.

She began intense, sometimes excruciating, physical therapy. She had nerve damage so severe "I couldn't even put a sock on ... it was like pins and needles," she said.

A month after her surgery, chemo started again.

Eventually, her white-blood count dropped drastically. She was in isolation, receiving daily, painful injections to boost her blood count back into the normal range.

Finally, on April 14, the doctor stopped treatment. The cancer wasn't completely gone, but further treatment would have been too debilitating.

"We'll hope for the best," Menendez told her.

"It was tough to hear, but my body couldn't take it anymore," she said.

Gradually, she went from wheelchair to walker to two crutches, then one, then a cane. Now she walks without assistance, but still cannot run.

She moved back home to Cambria to live with her dad in November 2015 and enrolled in Leffingwell.

It changed her life.

Being home, where she was born and raised, and being at Leffingwell "was like a safe haven to me," she said.

"A lot of responsibility is put on the students to do the work on their time," she said of the school, an atmosphere in which she learned and flourished.

She completed four years of work in three.

'I really felt recognized'

Her graduation was only the latest of many celebrations, large and small, that Wolfe and her dad have shared since she came home and regained her health.

Perhaps the most elaborate and life-changing was a trip they took together to New Zealand, a journey funded by Make-a-Wish Tri-Counties.

During her treatment, Wolfe was told she was eligible to have her wish granted by the nonprofit that provides yearned-for experiences to children diagnosed with life-threatening medical conditions.

But her mom never followed up on the opportunity.

After Wolfe moved to Cambria, she made the call herself. After a complex, lengthy approval process that included getting passports, she and her dad landed March 12 in Aukland, New Zealand.

As a budding landscape photographer, Wolfe was entranced by the sights they saw, and captured many images with the camera she'd received for Christmas.

"All the places we stayed in knew I was a Make-a-Wish recipient," she said, "so they made special accommodations."

For the first time, she said, "I really felt recognized for what I'd gone through."

She and her dad took flights, hiked in national parks, saw stunning waterfalls, even "stayed in communal huts for two nights," where they met a woman from Grass Valley who'd been to Cambria before.

Although Wolfe discovered that "the world is a lot bigger than I'd thought before," it can also be much smaller in terms of connections between people.

The future

For now, Wolfe is working for therapist Sheri Baldwin at Gym One/Cambria Physical Therapy and hopes to buy a car soon.

She receives regular check-ups. At the most recent last fall, "everything looked great," she said.

She wants to complete her Cuesta College education "and someday become an occupational therapist, possibly pediatric."

She may also minor in photography to take her art to a new, possibly professional, level.

As a therapist, Wolfe hopes to help others the way so many people have helped her achieve distant, difficult goals that would be considered major accomplishments for anybody of any age.

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