A bone marrow transplant can be a life-saving procedure, but there are very few African American donors. Little miracle baby Denniya beat all the odds once a donor was located and now has a chance at a normal life.
Denniya Rawls is a happy and healthy baby, but when she was just three months old, Denniya got very sick, and doctors told her parents she wouldn’t make it.
“She wouldn’t make it overnight, and if she made it overnight, she wouldn’t make it over 24 hours,” Robin Thornton, Denniya’s mom, said.
Denniya had a rare condition known as primary HLH. Her immune system was attacking her healthy organs, and she needed a bone marrow transplant fast.
“Patients with this disease, if they don’t get a bone marrow transplant, they all die, unfortunately,” said Dr. Rabi Hanna, director of Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation with Cleveland Clinic Children’s.
But none of Denniya’s relatives was a match. And there’s a major shortage of African American donors. In fact, black patients only find an unrelated donor about 25 percent of the time. But, Denniya’s parents were thrilled when a perfect match was found within just a couple of weeks.
“It was exciting to actually know that they found the match so fast, and for it to be 10 out of 10, it was just a blessing,” said Dennard Rawls, Denniya’s father.
Denniya had eight weeks of chemo before her procedure. But then another setback, her condition flared right before the transplant.
“Patients who flare their disease prior to transplant, or immediately, less than 20 percent of them will survive,” explained Dr. Hanna.
Still, she beat the odds and now at seven months, Denniya’s going home after spending more than 100 days of her short life in the hospital.
At least three thousand people die each year because they can’t find a donor match. While blacks find a bone marrow donor only about 25 percent of the time, whites find donors about 75 percent of the time.
