Kati Sleeman; Cancer Victim Touched Prisoners, Presidents

Kati Sleeman, the blind girl whose unfailing humor and wisdom during her struggle with cancer tugged at the heartstrings of Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, died of a massive tumor early Tuesday morning with her family by her side.

She was 4 1/2.

“Kati touched a lot of people’s lives, staff people, fellow patients and visitors,” said hospital spokeswoman Maria Iacabo. “I think that people who were involved with her life learned a lot from this little girl.”

She touched lives outside of the hospital as well, from prisoners in Vacaville who sent her tape-recorded stories to a homeless man with whom she corresponded. After a story about her appeared in The Times on April 18, she received dozens of letters from as far away as Ireland as well as a visit from former President Ronald Reagan, who gave her a gift she cherished--a stuffed dog bearing the presidential seal.

Kati was diagnosed with retinoblastoma--a cancerous tumor of the eye--at 7 weeks old, and her right eye was removed shortly thereafter. She lost the other eye at age 2 1/2. After a year of intensive chemotherapy and radiation, another cancerous tumor appeared near her brain. It later spread into her bone marrow, her spinal fluid and lymph glands, and eventually throughout her body.

In some ways, Kati was a typical child. She loved “The Wizard of Oz” and butterflies and her pet dog, Binky. Yet, throughout her ordeal, she amazed those who knew her with her remarkable maturity and acceptance of her fate. She was often funny, sometimes cantankerous and exuded a warmth that even strangers found irresistible.

“From prisoners to Presidents to homeless people, so many people loved Kati and there’s nothing they have in common except a good heart,” said Kati’s mother, Kathy Sleeman. “Vision often gets in the way of seeing what’s inside a person’s heart, and I think Kati really expressed that.”

Kathy Sleeman said she and her husband, Glenn, and their 13-year-old son, Jimmy, were with Kati in her hospital room when she died at 4:45 a.m. Funeral arrangements have not yet been set.

The family, which lives in San Bernardino, had been exceptionally open with Kati about her condition and its prognosis. Doctors said this helped Kati maintain her positive outlook.

“Among all this pain and suffering that she was going through, I asked her what I could do for her,” Kathy Sleeman said. “And she said, ‘Just love me.’ ”

Typical of Kati was her response to an offer by the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which fulfills the fantasies of terminally ill children. Rather than choose a trip to Hawaii or a visit with a celebrity, Kati elected simply to have a party at the hospital, with pizza and balloons and all her friends around her. She had the party last month; dozens attended.

“She was one of the rare children that we have had here who, by the spark of life she had in her, got your attention right away,” said Kati’s doctor, Stuart Siegel. “Despite all of the terrible physical handicaps she had to deal with, including her blindness, she never lost her personality, she never lost her enthusiasm, her ability to talk with you about things, to be Kati. Even to the very end.”

Said Siegel’s secretary, Jackie Rosenberg, who visited Kati the night before she died: “She was still the prize of the hospital.”