On the 6th January 2019, 14 year old Kara fell poorly to an unknown illness. After many painful tests we found out Kara has severe aplastic anemia. Aplastic anemia is a condition that occurs when your body stops producing enough new blood cells. It is a rare disease, in which the bone marrow and the haematopoietic stem cells that reside, there are damaged. This causes a deficiency of all three blood cell types. The red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Aplastic refers to the inability of stem cells to generate mature blood cells.

Treatment for aplastic anemia includes medications, regular blood transfusions, and in Karas case, a bone marrow transplant from a matching donor.

Thankfully, they found a match in Karas 11 year old sister, Keira. Bone marrow harvesting is a very painful procedure. Surgeons had to harvest bone marrow from Keiras hip bone, as younger children have a larger number of stem cells there.

While Keira was having her bone marrow harvested, Kara received a gruelling 5 day chemotherapy treatment to suppress the last of her immune system. This is so her body is ready to receive her sisters donated bone marrow. Unfortunately, the chemotherapy would severely damage Karas ovaries, leaving her unable to have children. So she endured an operation to remove an ovary so it gives her the chance of being a mum in the future.

Now the bone marrow has been harvested and donated, the hospital will not allow Kara home unless she has her own bedroom. As Kara is from a large family, space is an issue. We need to raise enough money to convert the basement so Kara and Keira have separate bedrooms. They are not allowed to share a room with another person due to their T cells being extremely low. T-cells help B-cells make antibodies against invading bacteria, viruses, or other microbes. If they catch a cold from another family member it is life threatening. The smallest of donation will help towards this conversion, which means Kara can come home to her own bedroom. If you could donate, even the smallest amount, we would be forever grateful.