If Mighty Mack’s story didn’t have you in tears before, it will now; little Mackenzie has made a miracle recovery, and her cancer count is now at 0.1%!
Johannesburg, South Africa (29 July 2021) – Little Mackenzie Friedman, affectionately known as Mighty Mack, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) on Wednesday, 12th of May 2021; her story has touched the hearts of South Africans and mobilised many to donate blood and register as bone marrow donors in honour of her journey.
Since then, we have been covering her progress. Mack has had a few tumbles in her health. From needing an operation to remove a growth in her lung to fighting off infection while in a coma, Mighty Mack has defied the odds and come out stronger each time.
We last reported that Mighty Mack was breathing on her own again and about to start her second round of Chemotherapy.
An update came via WhatsApp today that left us sobbing! Tears of joy, of course!
“Hello to Macks Amazing Army. We have some incredible news to share… today we got the results back from Mackenzies latest bone marrow biopsy. Despite her cancer blast count having been at 6% at her last extraction 6 weeks ago (after round 1 of chemo) she has somehow managed to kill her own cancer cells whilst in a coma and her latest count is 0.1%!! There is literally no explanation for this and our oncologist has called it a miracle! What this means it that she is technically in remission and able to do the bone marrow transplant now! This is unbelievable as we had received advice from the states that they didn’t think we would be able to achieve remission because of her specific AML variant. She has sure showed them!!
We still have a way ahead of us though as because of the genetic mutation in her cancer it is extremely likely that she will relapse without a transplant. As such we will complete this round of chemo (and pray she gets her minimum residual disease count even lower as this makes the chance of relapse post transplant far less) and then we will transplant! (Far earlier than expected!) our transplant physician is now scrambling to sort out donors etc and we will keep you updated on that front.
Thank you for all your prayers and love for our little miracle child – clearly whatever you are all doing is working”
This news has us so happy for the family! We cannot wait to share the next update. Until then, we can all still keep on working to raise awareness to find the perfect bone marrow match for Mackenzie.
How to become a registered donor
- Register Online at www.dkms-africa.org (formally known as The Sunflower Fund) or www.sabmr.co.za.
- You will be notified if you qualify to be a donor by working through their lists.
- No blood or needles involved, just a cheek swab.
- Registering is free of charge.
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