The battle is just beginning for a Broadus girl who finally received a bone-marrow transplant after years of looking for a genetic match.

Kenna Emmons, 7, is sick and miserable, said her mother, Kimberlea Emmons.

“She had her transplant,” Emmons said in a telephone interview from a hospital in Cincinnati. “That doesn’t mean she’s all better or all healed by any means.”

Before the donor marrow cells could be transplanted into her body, Kenna’s own bone marrow had to be killed off. Three weeks of chemotherapy treatment preceded the transplant.

“She’s either up and puking or she’s asleep,” Emmons said. “She’s sad.

“It’s really hard to see her like this.”

Kenna was born with a rare condition called Combined Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Her immune system could not fight off infections and responded to them by attacking itself.

It took several years to find a donor who could give her marrow cells because she has a unique genetic profile. A previous match fell through just days before Kenna was set to begin chemotherapy in December 2008.

If last week’s bone marrow transplant is successful, the donor cells will grow into a new immune system.

Doctors won’t know for several weeks whether the cells have taken root in Kenna’s body, and it will be months before she can come home.

Her father, Brett, and brothers, Chai and Cale, are running the family ranch while Kenna and her mother stay in Cincinnati. They are also trying to repair their house, which cracked open recently because of a problem with the foundation.

An inch-wide gap runs the length of the house along the floor and ceiling, Kimberlea Emmons said.

Between that and travel costs to Cincinnati, the family is struggling to pay its bills.

“We’re using credit cards right now because we don’t have anything left in savings,” Kimberlea said.

Contact Diane Cochran at dcochran@billingsgazette.com or 657-1287.

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