“Julie, I think this is for Kayla,” Laura Kearney said as she and her family drove down Springs-Fireplace Road last week. They were met by streets lined with friends and community members to welcome 21-year-old Kayla Kearney home after over eight months of hospitals, surgeries, and physical therapy. “We were so overwhelmingly emotional,” her mother said, “it made us feel so special.”
Kayla was diagnosed in December with a large tumor on her pituitary gland, and on Jan. 17 she underwent what was expected to be a routine surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, to remove the tumor. It turned out to be a much more serious condition. Kayla was diagnosed with a paraganglioma, a type of neuroendocrine tumor that attaches to the blood vessels. It resulted in four strokes, swelling, and it even warranted a medically induced coma. But she made it through it all, and up until last week she was in physical therapy at a Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey.
The parade down Springs-Fireplace Road was not the only celebration that the Kearneys saw that day. Earlier, the staff at the Kessler Institute had a surprise in store for them. As they left around noon, the song “I’m Coming Home” by Chris Daughtry began playing throughout the facility. “On our floor by the elevators all the nurses surrounded Kayla clapping and saying goodbye,” Ms. Kearney said. And when the family exited the elevators in the foyer they were met by “every therapist with pompoms,” she continued, “even the C.E.O. and the C.N.O. was there, chanting her name. And the transport guy, who loves her, was wheeling her around in circles and she was waving and smiling. We were just overwhelmed by that.”
Ms. Kearney expressed her profuse gratitude for the staff at the Kessler Institute for the work they had done helping Kayla. “She is a miracle,” Ms. Kearney said. “It is a miracle that she is where she is.” Through months of hard work Kayla is now able to walk with some assistance on her right side. “She walked 140 feet down to the elevator in the hospital and she shocked us,” Ms. Kearney continued, adding that, “she went from NewYork-Presbyterian telling us after the crazy surgery that she’s ‘the sickest person in the hospital’ to progressing every single day.”
Although Ms. Kearney would have preferred for her daughter to stay at the Kessler Center longer, their health insurance would not continue to cover Kayla’s in-patient treatment. The family appealed the company’s decision several times, with even Kayla’s neurosurgeon going to bat for her, insisting that hers was “not a normal case,” according to Ms. Kearney, and that they believed that Kayla would continue to benefit from the in-patient work. “They pushed her,” Ms. Kearney said, “she is a warrior.” The company’s original decision stood.
Now that they are back home Kayla will begin out-patient physical therapy at Stony Brook Southampton. “We’re starting evaluation next week,” Ms. Kearney said, “and she will get into a routine of therapy four to five days a week.” The parade down Springs-Fireplace Road will be a memory that sticks with the family forever, another example of the community coming together to support Kayla.
At NewYork-Presbyterian and Kessler, “Kayla’s room was decorated from ceiling to floor with cards,” Ms. Kessler said. “That’s our community,” she said, “the people who rally for and look out for one another.”
