Mackenzie Friedman is now fifteen days post-transplant. Her family is sharing daily updates about her progress and setbacks; they thanked her medical team for working tirelessly to support her recovery.
Johannesburg, South Africa (31 January 2022) – 1-year-old Mackenzie “Mighty Mack” Friedman celebrates fifteen days post-bone-marrow transplantation. Every day from this point is an unknown as her body adapts to the new bone-marrow present. Her family has been sharing daily updates sharing the good, the bad, and the scary! To celebrate day 15 post-surgery, they thanked her incredible medical team.
While a bone-marrow transplant is the answer to kicking cancer’s butt, it is no walk in the park. Mighty Mack’s little body is going through a rollercoaster as it adapts and hopefully accepts her donors bone-marrow.
Since her transplant, Mack has undergone secondary surgery, fought a nasty anti-biotic resistant infection, become swollen from her medications, and been slightly traumatised by the necessities of emergency medical interventions. While she bravely fights each day, we keep her and her family in our daily thoughts and prayers.
The family, in return, are deeply thankful for the various medical teams that have been working to help save Mack and make her recovery as smooth as possible.
The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) has been a big part of her medical team. The family took the time to share how important their role has been in Mack’s care and how people can give back to the organisation.
“Mack is doing well this morning & continues to make good progress, with her bloods improving further.
We are blown away by the support & care she has received from her medical team, but there are also so many people who have worked so hard behind the scenes that we sadly will never be able to thank personally.
The South African National Blood Service Specialised Therapeutics & Cell Processing team played an instrumental role in Mack’s transplant.
Mack’s donor has a different blood group to her – in order to prevent a reaction in her body to these red cells, they needed to be removed before the transplant – a delicate job to remove only red cells and keep the stem cells.
This red cell reduction procedure was a great success & her doctors were very happy with the outcome.
The SANBS team worked through the night to process & freeze the remaining donor immune cells.
This organisation does so much good, and without their incredible work, Mack’s risk of her body rejecting the new cells would’ve been far greater.
We are so grateful for each and every member of this incredible team.
Please do remember that although Mackenzie doesn’t need transfusions currently, it was your blood donations that kept her alive at times, and there are so many other patients just like her who desperately need transfusions- it is so important to donate blood regularly if you are able to.”
You can support others like Mack by donating blood via the SANBS. If you are a new donor, you can find out all you need to know about the process here.
To follow her progress through the next few days, be sure to follow her social media pages for live updates. You can find it all on the Mighty Mack Facebook and Instagram pages.
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