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Girl battles leukemia

February 27, 2008|Karen Kestel

A bone marrow transplant in December 2006 seemed to end Abigail Mullins' nightmare of Acute Myelogenous Leukemia.

Now, less than two years later, the leukemia is back, and once again, the 12-year-old girl is in another fight for her life.

When Abby was first diagnosed, she underwent several rounds of chemotherapy at the University of Kentucky Children's Hospital. She was then referred to Cincinnati Children's Hospital were she received the bone marrow transplant.

Recently she relapsed, and once again Abby is facing a painful possibility of another bone marrow transplant, after already enduring several chemo and radiation treatments.

Presently, her doctors and family are debating about what will be the best time for her to have a second transplant. And while this is going on, another problem has surfaced, as there are no perfect matches for Abby in the National Bone Marrow Registry.

"I want to encourage people to not only give blood but to give platelets, not enough people think to give platelets in a situation like this", Christy Sexton, Abby's mother, said.

But, they have found a less than perfect match that they are planning to use from an umbilical cord registry.

While all of this has been going on, the family has also endured many hardships.

Sexton, a math teacher at West Jessamine Middle School, took off work for the school year 2006-07 to be at her daughter's side.

During this time, several faculty and staff have donated their vacation and sick days so Christy could take her daughter back and forth to her treatments.

Sexton said Abby's plight is typical because of the lack of bone marrow donors.

Interested persons can contact the Central Kentucky Blood Bank at 1-800-775-2522 for get more information on how to donate.

Additionally, there has been an account set up at the Main Street branch of Kentucky Bank for Abby Mullins.

To learn more about bone marrow go to www.marrow.org.

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