‘You have a voice’: Spokane mom writes book on medical advocacy around daughter’s story

SPOKANE — Kathy Keppel-Colkitt needed 15 years to write a book she now hopes will help people become effective medical advocates.

Self-published, “Will They Hear Me Now?” carries the story of her daughter, Brandi Colkitt, who at age 26 had debilitating pain in her brain’s frontal lobe. A Child Protective Services social worker, Colkitt got too sick to work and needed her mother’s support.

The two women navigated frequent Spokane doctor and hospital visits that began in fall 2008 and continued until Colkitt’s death June 18, 2009.

“In the first four months, we kept going to the ER because of the pain, and with no resolve,” Keppel-Colkitt said. Her daughter was given a few shots for pain, after a doctor mistakenly thought she had trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic pain condition that affects