Boston Herald Reporter Mourns 2-Year-Old Daughter Who Lived 9 Months With Leukemia
Boston Herald NFL reporter Doug Kyed and his wife, Jen Crosby-Kyed, are mourning the death of their 2-year-old daughter Hallie.
The couple shared their confounding loss with the world Monday, nine months after Hallie was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare form of cancer.
“Hallie died peacefully in her sleep on Sunday morning as Jen and I held her hands in bed,” Kyed wrote alongside a carousel of family photos on Instagram. “We’re completely lost and heartbroken without Hallie. Our lives will never be the same.”
“Hallie was a special kid, and she made a positive impact on so many people she met,” he continued. This included the family’s 6-year-old daughter, he wrote: “We were lucky to be her parents, and Olivia was fortunate to have the best baby sister.”
The grieving father said “nothing could have ever prepared us” for Hallie’s initial diagnosis in April. She had a bone marrow transplant in October, but relapsed afterward, and the leukemia quickly progressed beyond control, Kyed said.
According to the Mayo Clinic, acute myeloid leukemia causes bone marrow cells to grow and divide too quickly to properly function, which inevitably crowds out healthy cells. It can thus fatally prevent essential red and white blood cells from maturing.
Crosby-Kyed shared her own tribute Monday, saying they’d “clung on to hope” after starting Hallie’s trial drug treatment, but that the cancer simply “couldn’t be stopped.” She wrote that Hallie “passed away comfortably and peacefully, snuggled next to Doug and me” at the hospital.
“I will never understand why or how something so horrible can happen,” Crosby-Kyed wrote. “There is a giant hole in my heart and the pain is excruciating, but she was such a special little person and I’m so grateful I had her in my life and got to love her and be her mom.”
According to the American Cancer Society, acute myeloid leukemia accounts for only about 1% of all cancers. The disease is generally more common in men, and among patients older than 45.
“Doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital did everything they could to help Hallie, and she beat AML every day for over nine months straight,” Kyed wrote, adding that he and his wife had “held out hope for remission because of how brave, strong and resilient Hallie had been.”
Kyed remembered his daughter’s “sweet little pats on the back,” and wrote that she “loved painting, LOL dolls, her pink Hallie blanket, boots, using sign language for ‘more,’ having an assortment of chips, her cat Rambe, puppies and her family.”
“I’ll miss rubbing her hair and kissing her head and telling her I love her the most,” he wrote.
The family has organized a GoFundMe campaign to assist with medical costs.
