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| Little Fred and His Family Need Our Help as He Prepares for His Bone Marrow Transplant |
The cute boy in that picture is Fred!
He loves airplanes and football and pancakes frosted with chocolate. He dreams that one day he will be astronaut. He can read and run and ride a bike. He can tell you a joke, hop on one foot, and stand on his head.
But Fred has a very rare bone marrow defect, called Diamond Blackfan Anemia (DBA), and he cannot make his own red blood cells. To treat this, Fred receives blood transfusions and has received well over 150 of them since he was born in 2006. In December 2010, at the age of 4, a liver biopsy showed that Fred had accumulated toxic levels of iron and his liver had pre-cirrhotic damage from it. His family then discovered that Fred carries a copy of a gene responsible for hemachromatosis (a disorder that causes over-absorption of iron even in people who do make red cells). A bone marrow transplant will offer Fred hope for a new life.
The estimated cost of Fred’s transplant exceeds $500,000, with additional costs for post-transplant medication and care. The Drew Family will need to raise $75,000 for transplant-related medical expenses not covered by insurance and the great team @ Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) has helped raise $50,438 of these expenses so far.
Fred's transplant is scheduled for October and his family has completely relocated from Ohio to Seattle to prepare for it.
Together, we want to add an additional $9,000 to what the family has raised to give them the relief that they need. It won’t cover the entire gap, but it sure will help!
Let's raise the awareness about this rare disease and show the family how much we care!
As always, every dime you give to this family goes to this story and this story alone! |
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HopeMob is exactly what it sounds like - a mob of people bringing hope. Just as Flash Mobs dance and bring spontaneous joy and laughter, HopeMob will bring caring strangers together to create sudden, yet organized relief and hope all over the world! We see a need and swarm it! Together...we are POWERFUL!