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4 year old, Taja Harris, a girl suffering from Leukemia could NOT find a matching donor for a possible
bone marrow stem cell transplant that would save her life. Her mother, Jo Ann didn't have many options to save her, but she did have one-JoAnn decided to get pregnant to see if she can make a match with the resulting stem cells from the umbilical cord of her new child.
It worked! And it was a perfect match! Right after her brother's Adyn's birth, the cord blood which is rich in stem cells, was taken from the severed umbilical cord and later implanted into Taja in the first sibling cord blood transplant in Hawaiian history.
That was 3 years ago. Let's see how Taja is doing now:
Taja, now a healthy and happy 7-year-old, loves to run, tumble and play with her older sister and younger brother, now 2, whose blood DNA she shares. "She is doing wonderfully," said Dr. Kelley Woodruff, pediatric hematologist oncologist. "There's still no evidence that the cancer has come back. ... She's a delight. "I expect her to live until old age and healthy and cancer-free," said Woodruff, who performed the transplant. "It was like a new life was born with the baby being born, and Taja was given new life," she recalled.And here is a brief summary of how the
stem cell treatment works:
Taja received high doses of chemotherapy, which killed off her own bone marrow and stem cells. When she was infused with the cord blood, the stem cells, like homing pigeons, went to the bone marrow and remained there to create new blood cells and will remain her whole life to keep propagating new blood cells. Now Taja shares her brother's blood DNA, even having XY cells because they are from a boy. Jo Ann hopes that her family's story will encourage other women to donate cord blood. "For every one that's thrown out, that's a life that could have been saved," she said. Click here to read the whole happy story