Imagine going to the doctor for a cold only to learn you actually have leukemia. That’s how Charlotte's experience with blood cancer began in 2018.
“The doctor diagnosed it as strep throat,” Charlotte remembers. When the antibiotics didn’t work, she “went to another doctor who diagnosed it as something else.”
These incorrect diagnoses left Charlotte’s parents looking for more answers, so they requested a blood test. They were horrified by the results.
After putting her to bed on the night of the blood test, Charlotte’s mother Natalie realized their pediatrician had tried to call eighteen times in the last two hours. “The pediatrician said over the phone ‘Charlotte has leukemia,’” Natalie recalls. “‘Go to the emergency room immediately.’”
Because of the nature of her disease, doctors began Charlotte’s treatment the very next morning. She has vivid memories from the five long months she spent in the hospital receiving life-saving care. “I was so sick,” Charlotte explained. “I was nauseous all the time. I hid under blankets and didn’t do anything.”
It was hard for her family to see her like that, but things started shifting back to normal as her treatment drew to a close. Charlotte and her family were ecstatic when she went into remission.
But it didn’t last.
Cancer shakes up their lives… again
About a year and a half after she reached remission, Charlotte’s blood counts showed that her leukemia was back, and she needed a bone marrow transplant to survive—but she couldn’t get one where she’d received her earlier cancer care.
So the family prepared to transition to another hospital equipped to perform Charlotte’s life-saving bone marrow transplant. Time was of the essence. The facility that could perform the donation and transplant was over 1,000 miles away, and every day that went by gave the leukemia more time to take hold in Charlotte’s body.
“We had to move extremely quickly to Cincinnati Children’s hospital to start the bone marrow transplant,” Charlotte recalls.
Luckily, Charlotte’s brother, Hank, was a match to be her bone marrow donor. Hank was also a kid, so their parents and healthcare providers talked to him extensively about what it would mean to donate. “I was asked a million times ‘are you sure you want to do this,’” Hank said. His response? “Why wouldn’t I?” He was resolved to help his sister by any means necessary.
Charlotte feels extremely grateful because her bone marrow transplant was successful and she is in remission again. Now, she and her family work with LLS’s Office of Public Policy to make real, effective change for other kids like her.
