"Brother saves life with his cord blood cells" - Miles' story

In November 2006, my partner, Pete and I possibly made the smartest decision of our lives!

It was when we decided to store the cord blood of our children with Cryosite, a private cord blood bank which we’d discovered at a parenting and baby expo. We were expecting our first child, Jasper at the time.

Collecting and storing the cord blood from the placenta at birth meant that our babies could benefit from stem cell advancements in the future. Stem cells are cells in the blood or bone marrow that are capable of producing all mature blood cells including both red and white blood cells and platelets.

There are current studies showing the potential for stem cells from cord blood to repair damaged spinal cords, or to help stroke or liver failure patients. Cord blood is also widely used to treat leukemia and several other types of cancer. Pete and I felt that storing the cord blood was an insurance policy for our children’s future health.

We have two beautiful little boys, Jasper 4 and Miles 2. On Monday morning, 17th August 2009, I received news that no parent ever wants to hear. Miles, then 10 months old, was suspected of having a rare form of leukemia known as JMML (Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia). JMML is a cancer of the blood and is found in infancy or early childhood. It is fatal if left untreated and the only treatment is a stem cell or bone marrow transplant.

Miles’ only chance of survival was a bone marrow transplant. Pete, Jasper and I were all tested to see if we could donate our bone marrow.

At this stage we told the doctors that we had stored both Jasper and Miles’ cord blood. Would this help? The doctor was pleasantly surprised and confirmed it was great news! I remember feeling like we had won the lotto. Since the nightmare began, we had felt totally helpless, now maybe we had done one thing right that could potentially give Miles a better chance of survival!

Early October, it was confirmed Jasper was a match for Miles. What a magic moment!!! This meant we would be able to use Jasper’s stored cord blood to treat Miles. Having the cord blood meant Miles would have a pure source to go to transplant with reducing the likelihood of infection post transplant. We had the ‘golden ticket’ to give Miles the best possible chance of survival!

The transplant took place on the 8th February 2010.
On transplant day I could not breathe. There was no turning back. Please God let things be okay. The Cryosite representative turned up with the bag of what simply looked like blood. There were lots of formal checks and sign offs then before we knew it the transplant was up and running. It looked just like a blood transfusion. I remember sitting in the cot with Miles on the day as the transfusion took place praying ‘please Jasper, fix him’.

Now we had the long wait. There is a rejection countdown of 120 days post transplant. It seemed like forever. We had to hope that Miles’ body would fight and his immune system would start to rebuild. It was an hour by hour waiting game. Rejection can still occur at day 120, so every single day counts.

Miles had his up and down days, but overall with the cord blood and our quarantine boot camp, we were extremely lucky to avoid any major infections through the transplant period. It was fantastic. Miles was recovering extremely well.

15 days later, much to our amazement the hospital decided that Miles was stable enough to go home. This meant isolation at home so still no visitors but home nonetheless. We were absolutely stunned, we had expected to be in hospital for up to 6 months and we had got away with only 8 weeks. We had broken hospital records!

At the moment Miles is doing extremely well. Miles still takes daily oral chemo along with only one other medication. Great improvement on the 45+ he started out on! We have learnt over this last 15 months, to take life one day at a time and that there is nothing more important than family and no one really knows what is around the corner. Appreciate every second!!!

I would like to appeal to everyone to become bone marrow donors and for new mums, please make the effort to store your cord blood as an insurance policy for your child’s future health.

Dani, Melbourne.