Nine Years Old and Facing Transplant Again: Kaedyn’s Fight Against a Rare Immune Disease

A 9-year-old boy who already survived one failed bone marrow transplant as a baby is preparing to go through the procedure a second time. This time, he is old enough to understand what it means.

Kaedyn was born with chronic granulomatous disease, or CGD, a rare genetic immune disorder that makes it hard for the body to fight certain serious infections. His childhood has been marked by doctors, medications, infections, hospital stays, and precautions most children never face.

When he was 1 year old, he received his first bone marrow transplant. His family hoped it would be a cure. It was not. The transplant eventually failed, and Kaedyn returned to being 100 percent his own cells. The CGD remained.

Now he is in fourth grade. He loves SpongeBob, school, his friends, and making people laugh. Sometime in October he is expected to undergo a second bone marrow transplant.

This time is different. Kaedyn remembers hospitals. He understands that he will be sick. He knows he will be away from home. And he knows enough about what happened the first time to be afraid of what could happen again.

“He is scared,” his mother, Cortneay, said. She is terrified too. “I am terrified of watching my child go through another transplant after already watching the first one fail.” She would trade places with him if she could. She cannot.

Instead she is trying to surround him with as much love as possible before he walks into this fight again. She is asking people to pray that his donor cells engraft, that he is protected from serious infections and complications, and that this transplant succeeds where the first one did not.

She cannot promise her son that everything will be okay. There is one promise she says she can make: he will not have to face this alone.

Source: Family appeal shared by Kaedyn’s mother, Cortneay, requesting prayers and messages of support ahead of his second bone marrow transplant.