Kathryn Jackson isn’t one to let a few setbacks get in her way. Despite an amputated arm, a three-time bout with cancer, a partially paralyzed face and some hearing loss, this 12-year-old Alabama Baptist is determined to lead a normal life.
But although her abilities and hobbies are normal, Katye, as she is called by her family, is anything but average.
“I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me, because I don’t feel sorry for myself,” Katye, a published author, said to a group of fourth-graders at Vestavia Hills Elementary School-Central during a writers’ conference Feb. 22. And none of the children seemed to feel sorry for her; they were just interested.
“I want people to know that it is OK to ask me questions,” Katye said in a recent article in Birmingham magazine. “I would rather answer their questions than have them sit and wonder.”
The students did ask questions. They wanted to know about how she at 10 years old wrote “Katye: The Story of a Cancer Survivor.” They wanted to know if her surgery for a brain tumor at age 2 hurt. They wanted to know how she felt when she found out her arm would be removed.
“When I was 2, I just thought it was normal,” said Katye, who along with her family is a member of Taylor Road Baptist Church, Montgomery, but currently attends Baptist churches in Birmingham. “I thought everybody went to the hospital that much.”
After her surgery, Katye lost some of her hearing, part of her face was paralyzed and she had to learn how to walk again.
“I can’t imagine anyone being able to face what our family has without faith,” said Sharon Jackson, Katye’s mom. “Knowing that people were praying for us was a huge comfort, and I believe many prayers were answered.”
Jackson notes that Katye’s grandparents, Curtis and Judy Jackson of Autaugaville Baptist Church, and Robert and Nellie Stacey, members of Oak Grove Baptist Church, Frisco City, along with their churches, were the prayer warriors. They were called to prayer again when Katye was five.
At age five, Katye was diagnosed with bone cancer in her left arm. She had surgery again when she was six, and a bone from her leg was put into her arm.
“When I was at the hospital with Katye, Ronnie (Katye’s dad) was at home with Matt (Katye’s brother, age 16) making sure his needs were met,” said Jackson. “He has been the one who can make us laugh, even when we’re down.”
In 1999, at age 9, Katye broke her arm where the reconstruction was done, and in March 2000, she was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer and had her arm amputated.
Again, Katye didn’t act like the average girl; her strength amazed her teachers. She went home from the hospital the day after the amputation and was back in school on Friday so she could let her friends know she was OK.
With the help of Grady Friday, a Tuscaloosa man who lost his arm in a military accident 25 years ago, Katye learned to do some things with one arm.
“Now, I can swim, play miniature golf and tennis, paint, do my homework, tie my shoes and cross- stitch,” Katye told Birmingham magazine.
“She’s very mature for her age,” said Jackson. “Someone at the hospital once told me that God gives children with cancer a special kind of grace, and I believe that is definitely true.”
A sign of her maturity, Katye was the youngest speaker during the writers’ conference and had the opportunity to tell children only a few years younger than she how book writing and publishing works. The children wanted to know why she had written a book.
“I wanted to help my friends learn about cancer, and it was a lot easier in a book than speaking it,” she said, noting she was encouraged to write by a second-grade teacher, Susan Larkin.
“In fourth grade, our schoolwide project was to help cancer patients,” said Katye. “No one knew I had cancer because I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me.”
While helping in Larkin’s class, Katye heard a girl ask why they were wrapping gifts for kids with cancer.
“They can’t play,” the girl said.
Encouraged to teach the children, Katye and Larkin met every Wednesday afternoon to work on a book. “We would work on it until we thought it was good, but then we’d read it later and throw it away,” said Katye. “Then we’d work on it some more, think it was ready and then edit it again.”
Katye began writing in January 2000 and was finished in May. She even illustrated the book herself with hand-drawn pictures.
Next came the tough decision of deciding who the publisher would be.
“We didn’t want things to change, and if we gave it over to a publishing company, they might have changed the words or the illustrations,” Katye said.
Katye said Mickey Ferguson from Fox 6 and Jill Letcher at Barnes & Noble helped with this process. “Birmingham magazine got the printer for us, but the book was published under [Katye’s] publishing company’s name,” said Sharon Jackson.
The company is called Katye Luvs Cats.
“I love cats, and my cats love me so much, more than they love anyone else in my family. I like small furry animals because they feel good. My whole room is filled — and I mean filled — with cats,” Katye said.
A portion of the proceeds from Katye’s book go to Camp Smile-A-Mile, Alabama’s camp for children with cancer.
“Their camp is held on Lake Martin,” said Katye. “I like it because I can relate to the kids there better. They all have had cancer too.”
Katye, who is off treatments and feeling well, has been rewarded for her efforts to teach other children about cancer.
She won the Angels in Action award in October, an award sponsored by Georgia Pacific Corporation for five people in the nation who perform acts of kindness to help others.
“I got a savings bond, a year’s supply of toilet tissue, which is funny, but we can use it, and I got to meet Toni Braxton, a singer, because she handed out the awards.”
Katye also visited Washington to give a copy of her book to President George Bush.
In return, he sent an encouraging letter and his picture.
She’s met Lance Armstrong and has received letters from as far away as Chile.
But anyone who meets Katye knows these famous people have nothing on her. After all, she’s not your average 12-year-old.
Share with others: