Prayers For Ashley Jade

[Tina K.]

My daughter, Ashley Jade is 13 years old. She was a very healthy child until Nov. 2011. She was suddenly diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia and our entire worlds were turned upside down. She was treated with horse ATG in Dec. 2011. It is now June, 6 months later and we have seen a little improvement in her blood counts but she is still completely transfusion dependent to survive. She can no longer attend public school and spends much of her time in the doctors office and hospitals. She has kept such a positive attitude through all of this even knowing that a bone marrow transplant might be her only option in the near future. She really tries hard to bring awareness to others about Aplastic Anemia, bone marrow transplants and the desperate need for blood and marrow donors. She is even hosting her own blood and bonemarrow drive June 27th in hopes of finding matches for the thousands of people who are in need. Please visit her page that the 2 of us have created to share her story with the world. www.Facebook.com/prayersforashley
She is an amazing young lady and loves to chat with others in her similar situation.

[Neil Cuadra]

Tina and Ashley,

It's great that you are attacking this problem head-on, staying positive, and calling attention to SAA and blood and bone marrow donations. You're helping other patients as well as your own family because, as you've seen, we're all in this together. Getting past SAA takes perseverance and you're just the ones to do it, so keep up the good work!

You might want to post in our Sharing your story thread, where we track the URLs of patient sites, to give extra exposure to your Facebook page. School is usually the center of a teenager's social life, so when you can't go to school social networking becomes even more important as a way to hold on to friends and make new friends. Ashley can have her own Marrowforums account if she wants since 13 is the minimum age to join.

Perhaps you can share more about what's happening now, such as what Ashley's blood counts are and whether you're considering a second round of ATG or are already looking for a bone marrow donor.