Bellusci, Bothell relay overcomes to succeed

Katie Bellusci could have been happy simply to be competing.

Last August, the Bothell senior received a sobering health diagnosis – systemic lupus and lupus nephritis.

“This disease put me in kidney failure, debilitating joint pain, and fluid surrounding my heart with a treatment plan of six months of chemotherapy,” Bellusci wrote in an email to the Times.
Bellusci also had to take high doses of steroids and oral chemo. She only recently completed her last dose of chemotherapy.