Marrow 4 Millie!

So, while Stan was doing his MBA at Oxford University, there was one other LDS guy in his MBA program. Brady Flamm, we became quick close friends especially because they had a daughter Mary's age (2) who had her birthday just the day before (September 28th, Mary is the 29th).  They were nursery buddies!

While at Oxford we took a few trips with the Flamms and discovered England. After I had Thomas, the Flamms took care of  me, had us over for dinner, helped with the girls etc... Here is a picture of Millie feeding Thomas a bottle! 

1 year after the MBA Millie was diagnosed with Leukemia: http://bradyandamanda.blogspot.com.au/2009/12/battle-with-leukemia-begins.html

After 2+ years of  battling Leukemia Millie was discharged in early February of 2012. They had a huge party! SO PROUD OF YOU MILLIE!

And three days later they found out the cancer had come back (which is very unusual for her type of cancer)...it had infected 80% of her bone marrow and in order for her to NOT die, she needs to do another year of treatment and get a bone marrow transplant. 


Millie is supposed to be celebrating her discharge at Disney Land RIGHT NOW, but instead she has lost so much hair her mom is ready to shave her head again...which I am sure has got to be very defeating for everyone around. SO--the point of this blog. Millie needs help, because she cannot beat cancer without a bone marrow transfer (something she needs in exactly 6 months!) Unfortunately, bone marrow is type specific (like blood types) and Millie needs a match to get a transfer. They tested her little brother to see if he is a match to donate his bone marrow (as 1/3 of all siblings are), but found out recently that he is not. Neither of her parents are a match as well.



Here is a snipped I took from her blog today: http://bradyandamanda.blogspot.com

The number one question I get from everyone right now is, Have they found a match? The answer is sort-of. When we met with the bone marrow team to go over what we should expect over the next 6 months they mentioned that they thought Amelia would have hundreds of possible donors. She doesn't. We do however have around 7 unrelated POSSIBLE donors and 4 cord blood donors. I say possible because these matches have come from the bone marrow registry and they are 6 out of 10 matches. Amelia needs a 10 out of 10. When you swab your check and send it in they can only test 6 markers and there are a handful of people in this world that are a 6/6 for Millie. When our insurance approves the doctors to look further into these possible donors we will know more with what we are dealing with. We have been told that normally insurance will approve them looking into about 4 total. At that point they will try to contact the possible matches and have them do a blood test to see if they are a 10/10. If there are none I'm sure the insurance will pay for more tests, but if not, then Brady and I will pay for the other donors to be tested. If there are no 10/10 matches at that point then I don't know what happens. I guess we will have a sit down and talk options; is it safe to wait and hope to find a match, or do we go ahead without a perfect match? I pray we won't have to answer those questions.

We are all doing the best we can, but I am not going to say it's been easy. It hasn't. Some days I am numb and go on like we are there for yet another fever, not because my baby is fighting for her life. Other days I can't get a grip and I cry over everything. Those are the days that Amelia is depressed. Those are hard days. I seem to be the one that takes most the blame. I'm her mom, and I shouldn't have let this happen. Some days she screams at me how much she hates me and that I'm a horrible mother, and a liar. These days are hard. Then there are times when she has her same old giggle. Man she has a good giggle. With her smile come the days where I know she will be alright, that we all will be alright.

Wonderful Brady, there are no words for my husband. No words. He is the world and he makes everything better, for everyone. I love him.

I'm rambling like always and I'm not even sure any of this post made sense, but I wanted to get it down. Can I just say thank you to all of you. Really, all of you. If you are reading this blog, I know you have said a prayer for Millie, cooked me a meal, brought treats, given me a hug, written to let me know you're there, let me laugh with you, got me a cleaning lady, surprised Millie with an iPad, made it so I wouldn't have to worry about cooking for a very long time, taken Austin, sat with Millie, sent her an email, thought about us, taken out my garbage cans, shoveled my driveway, sat with me through the night, or understood that when I said I was OK, that I really meant please pray. Please pray.

So there are two things that you and I can do NOW to help them (1) do a bone marrow test maybe YOU will be a better match!--click on the link below...


  http://marrow.org/Join/Join_Now/Join_Now.aspx?promo_code=marrow4millie


In order to get tested, you swab your cheek with a q-tip, send it to a lab and you hear back if you can help...and you don't hear back if you are not a match :-) 


and (2) donate $...They had a really hard time when this site was set up because they don't take 'hand-outs' but they really do need the financial help and the money raised lifted a huge burden off of their shoulders.  http://meetmillie.realcove.com Sometimes when someone is sick the medical bills are another undeserving stress that often puts people over the edge and we need her parents to be as strong as possible right now.

                      Hang in there Millie!!