who became Slave Lake’s poster girl for cancer –and courage — before she was seven years old, is bearing down on five years of being cancer free. And though her once-blond hair turned to auburn when it grew back following chemotherapy treatments, the now 12-year-old Kara Taylor is no less courageous.
She says the cancer that was her biggest enemy created the foundation for a life with a high pain tolerance and few fears.
At 12, soccer, drama, clothes – and boys – (though not necessarily in that order, she admits) have become the focal point of this Grade 7 student’s life.
There have been other trials and tribulations since surgeons successfully removed the rhabdomyosarcoma – a cancer that began growing on the right side of her brain, prompting the need for two surgeries and countless rounds of chemotherapy treatments and tests.
But she and her family are breathing much easier as she nears the five-year cancer free mark, even though Kara insists she doesn’t spend much time dwelling on the ‘what ifs’ of life.
“It was just another page of her life,” says Mom Jackie about her daughter’s outlook. “She never did dwell on it.” And the courageous soon-to-be teen that’s already taller than her mother doesn’t bat an eyelash when its time for her twice-yearly checkups that include chest X-rays and blood work. (The chest pics are to detect a returning cancer, says Jackie, “because they tell us that’s where it’ll show up first if it returns.”)
More surgeries are expected in coming years
Neither is she particularly concerned about the next three or four surgeries that it’s going to take to fill in the ‘dent’ that surgeons created when they removed the cancer-infected muscle and tissue growth in the right temple area of her head.
“The plastic surgeons say they’ll wait until she’s done growing – at 15 or 16 years, to start the three or four surgeries over a couple of years” to fill that gap, says Mom Jackie.
The process will include inserting plastic ‘cups’ of sorts in increasingly larger sizes to stretch the skin and fill in the dent in the side of her head.
It’s invisible to most when Kara wears her long hair down, but has prompted some questions when she wears it up in a ponytail or bun.
“But I just tell them about the cancer,” she says, casually without missing a beat.
Pain? It was her partner for so many years that Kara rarely flinches when she gets hurt these days, says Jackie. In fact Kara was re-introduced to pain when orthodontists had to cut out her wisdom teeth and ‘pull down’ the eyeteeth, molars and wisdom teeth that were imbedded by the series of chemotherapy treatments.
“That hurt,” admitted Kara as her mom explained the process that unfolded before Kara could have braces attached just over a year ago.
“She never complains when they have to tighten them, though,” Jackie adds. Her older brother, on the other hand, “whimpers for three day every time his get tightened.”
Several Letters to Santa from Grade 2 students at C.J. Schurter School in 1997, pleading for Santa to ‘bring Kara back’ and ‘make Kara well’ lead to a story in The Leader. Those eventually prompted a ‘Caring for Kara’ campaign in late 1997 and early ’98 shortly after Kara was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma — the name that was foreign to many, but soon became almost a household word as Kara’s story spread.
In all the community raised many thousands of dollars to feed the fund that eventually became one to help cancer patients offset the costs associated with treatment.
For Jackie and her family it was a Godsend, much like the daughter who bravely dealt with everything life was throwing at her.
“This is my angel,” says Jackie with an admiring and very grateful smile.
“She’s a real miracle, that’s for sure.”

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