Charley
By Sarah Chance
In August of 2021, at six-months-old, our daughter Charley had been fighting constant infections for the last several weeks and just was not getting any better. This led us to the emergency room where after several tests and scans we would learn that she had a blood cancer, specifically AML Leukemia. Within hours, we had gone from an average family to finding our new home on the children's oncology floor at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, away from her comfy crib and sound machine to a dark, cold hospital room, where over the next 48 hours we would watch our baby get a central line placed, chemotherapy started and receive blood transfusions as her counts upon diagnosis were so dangerously low.
We would later learn that Charley had a high-risk form of Leukemia with a “very poor” prognosis, which led us to a stem cell transplant for her best chance of a cure. The next six months were spent in and out of the hospital averaging 28-day stays while Charley underwent high-dose chemo to achieve remission before getting her stem cell transplant from her then two-year-old brother.
Each round of chemo would follow with a sharp decline in her blood counts, requiring countless blood and platelet transfusions over the course of her treatment.
During one of her most aggressive cycles after Charley had thrown up blood for the fourth day in a row, the Nurse Practitioner told us she would need yet another platelet transfusion - it would be the only way to stop the bleeding as her body did not have the ability to create platelets on its own. However, there were only nine bags between the adult and children’s hospitals, so they were prioritizing the active bleeding patients first. A couple more hours went by, and the bleeding continued, and Charley was finally prioritized for one of those nine bags. Emotions were high when that bag finally reached our room, and the next day I participated in my first blood donation.
I wish I could say that that was the only time blood and platelet products were limited, but it was only the first of many. At times, Charley would receive a fraction of her need simply because “some” was better than none and that was all they had. As we became more connected in the childhood cancer community, we learned this was a constant challenge across many oncology floors in the United States.
Chemo can kill all cells, including the healthy ones, thus preventing the body from being able to produce blood and platelets, fostering the reliance on transfusions throughout the cancer treatment process. Charley underwent a stem cell transplant in addition to chemo, which placed her at a higher need for transfusions - and at times, needing multiple platelet transfusions a day to curb the bleeding.
Today Charley is two years old and thriving. She still sees her oncology teams monthly for blood draws to ensure she remains in remission. Despite being on the other side, she has a long road ahead of her.
Your donations are going to people, to kids, who desperately need it, to people whose lives depend on it. In addition to cancer patients, your blood is going to trauma victims.
One Monday as Charley was attending her monthly oncology clinic visit at Vanderbilt Medical Center Children’s Hospital, I spoke to her doctor about the blood supply levels in advance of coming to share her story here with you. Little did I know that just floors below us, the victims of the Covenant School mass shooting were being treated. It was blood donated at Red Cross that was used to treat those patients.
If not for people who donate blood and platelets, Charley would not be here today.
Thank you.
Sarah Chance
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