Inspirational Stories

Katie is a beautiful young girl who was diagnosed with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on January 24, 2015. Her cancer is particularly aggressive and presented with subtle signs such as lethargy, loss of appetite, and just a general change in personality. Her family took her to the ER just to find that she had masses in her lungs, liver and spleen. Katie was 11 months into a 28 month clinical trial when she relapsed with leukemic tumors on both of her optic nerves on December 28, 2015. 

Katie needed a bone marrow transplant to save her life and her baby sister, Ellie, was a perfect match but she was only 22 months old. Her doctors really wanted to find an older donor to be able to collect more cells but they hit a brick wall. There was no other match in the entire registry and Ellie was their only hope. It was one of the hardest days for Katie's family because they had to divide their hearts in half that day. Half in the bone marrow unit with Katie and the other in the operating room with  Ellie. Katie is currently being treated at VCU and we are amazed by her strength.