Our daughter Sophia was only four months old when she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of infant leukemia. Before she could walk or talk, hospitals became her normal.
When her leukemia relapsed just before a planned stem cell transplant, CAR T-cell therapy became her next chance. At only eight months old, Sophia underwent apheresis to collect the T cells needed to make her CAR T cells.
For an adult, apheresis is generally a much more routine procedure. For a baby her size, it was a huge undertaking. Her collection took two days, eight hours each day, and she had to remain sedated throughout. As her blood travelled through the machine to filter out her T cells, the amount outside her body was significant compared to her total blood volume. Donor blood helped maintain her circulating blood volume and made the collection possible.
That wasn't the only time we depended on donors.
During treatment, Sophia's platelets could become so low that something as simple as a sneeze could cause a nosebleed lasting for hours. Donated platelets helped her body do something as basic as stop bleeding.
CAR T gave Sophia 14 months in remission. When her leukemia returned, she needed a stem cell transplant. In November 2025, when she was two, I had the incredible privilege of becoming her haploidentical stem cell donor. My cells became the foundation of her new blood and immune system.
Even after transplant, donors remained part of her recovery. While her new immune system couldn't yet make all the antibodies she needed, IVIG provided some of that protection.
Today, Sophia is three. For the first time in her life, she ran around and played with other children. Until now, cancer treatment, recovery and isolation had never really given her that opportunity. To everyone else it probably looked completely ordinary. To us, it was anything but.
Before Sophia got sick, I knew blood donation was important. I never understood how many different ways donors could carry one child through years of treatment.
Blood helped make her CAR T treatment possible. Platelets helped stop her bleeding. IVIG protected her while her immune system rebuilt. Stem cells gave her a new blood and immune system.
I wish those donors could see what we saw today: a three-year-old simply getting to be three.
Their donations are part of her story, and our family will always be grateful.
