As the saying goes, “Never stop believing in Hope, because miracles do happen”. The journey of a miracle girl Kyra Diaz suffering from an extraordinary rare blood disease to finally getting cured with the help of cord blood transplantation, is the story that you don’t want to miss.
Kyra Diaz is an 11 year old girl who was diagnosed with a very rare and life threatening blood disease called aplastic anemia in 2009. The challenges she faced and the mountain of hurdles she crossed during this period are just speechless. She received the cord blood transplant in October 2013 which was developed by the scientists and experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
Kyra’s family has faced many ups and downs during this journey. When she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia her bone marrow was not able to produce new blood cells and her own immune system was attacking the marrow resulting in this rare condition.
Initially she was treated at Seattle Children’s Hospital where she was given immunosuppressant ATG to reset her bone marrow. She responded fairly well for certain period of time and this stopped the need for red blood cell transfusion in every two to four weeks. Kyra and her family were happy and were having high hopes that she will get cured as her cell count started going up. But, by January 2013 she was again back to low cell counts and a bone marrow transplant was the only way to save her.
Kyra’s parents were finding it hard to get a bone marrow donor, so, they moved towards cord blood transplantation, but there also they did not succeed as her younger sister was a no match for her and the national donor registry did not have such amount of donated cord blood to have a potential match for her. Still, they did not lose hope and their prayers were answered in the form of Fred Hutch researcher Dr. Colleen Delaney.
She said that cord blood is collected after a baby is born and that blood has a very low immune system and can be used as a match for the people who do not find a suitable match. However, this cord blood is very less in quantity so the number of cells needed is more and so the parents often has to delay the transplantation process. However, Dr. Colleen Delaney could treat Kyra with a double cord blood transplant method which involved partially matched unit cells will be grown and then given to her. But, this process needed an FDA approval and after the approval passed, Kyra was treated with it.
Kyra lost hope and cried when she was diagnosed with lymphoma in January 2014, a side effect of her cord blood transplant. But, her parents kept their hopes high and her treatment for lymphoma began. In May, the treatment concluded and Kyra had to miss school for almost one and a half year. But, the results were worth it, she was in remission.
Kyra is enjoying her new life. She is back again in school, she is very fond of art and won a regional contest award for her painting, and also she is a very perceptive writer and want to get expertise in this field. She likes to write fiction stories. She was named student of the month when she returned to sixth grade. She is progressing amazingly.
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