With a successful career that garnered her awards, a McKnight fellowship and so many moments of good luck and unexpected good fortune, many people considered her to be “one of the success stories” of the industry.  Always grateful for every opportunity afforded her, Kate’s main presence in the cities was as an actor. Period. And this presence grew more and more public in the eyes of the community – especially in the eyes and minds of countless generous and supportive theater professionals and patrons.

In 2008 her health started declining rapidly and mysteriously. This descent into a complex group of serious and maddeningly undiagnosable health issues remained in the dark and out of the spotlight to all but a few close friends and family. Eleven specialists in eight months and no one could find a diagnosis for the increasing pain and exhaustion that made Kate feel much more like an elderly woman than a brassy, busy woman in her mid-thirties. By the end of each work day she saw the 40 feet to her mailbox as insurmountable and so limped into her home without even being able to check the mail each day. Appointment after appointment and dozens upon dozens of tests ordered by her team of dedicated doctors, internists and specialists illicited no hints or results.  By 2010 she had had four episodes of tree-trunk edema (usually only found in seniors and the more elderly) and by March of 2011 she’d lost and gained 20-25 pounds five times. 

The worse her physical condition became, correlatively, the worse her mental health became. And vice versa until the cadre of doctors Kate was seeing regularly agreed when she said she felt trapped in some Gordian Knot of worsening health where one issue couldn’t be treated even slightly without negatively affecting a different issue.  Kate’s mental health worsened until she had to be brought into the emergency room four times in one year – and finally she hospitalized herself in July of 2011.

Kate has what is called refractory/resistant major depression, complicated with issues of severe anxiety. No medicines of the dozens she’s tried even slightly reduced the agony of this silent, invisible condition. Most major depressive episodes last anywhere from two weeks to six months. Kate is now entering her fourth consecutive year of a depressive episode. Having finally found the region’s psychiatric expert on this type of depression and becoming one of his patients, he explained to her that walking around with her level and type of depression and anxiety, especially for the extraordinary length of time this episode has gone on, does the equivalent amount of damage to the body as living with untreated heart disease or multiple untreated heart attacks.

When Kate discovered Heeling Allies, she read and re-read every word of their site almost daily. She watched their video repeatedly. She finally found hope. Heeling Allies is the only organization of its kind in the country. Their goal is to pair up exceedingly well-trained and customized service dogs to their clients. These are not pets. They are service animals who help their handlers do things their illnesses would otherwise prevent them from doing. Clients of Heeling Allies are people suffering from a range of debilitating mental illnesses and impairments. Although the organization gets many applicants, Kate decided to risk a huge disappointment (not an easy thing for a person plagued with severe depression and anxiety issues). She sent her application off and crossed fingers, toes, legs and arms. After a thorough vetting of Kate's application during which the reps from H.A. spoke to all her doctors and personal references, and went over her medical history – Kate was accepted to be a Heeling Allies client!!

Please join us in raising funds to make it possible for Kate to get the help she needs. Donate today!