Hannah Campo who will be 4 on June 18th was diagnosed with severe Aplastic Anemia in Feb. 2015 – noting that she only had 10% of her bone marrow! Prior to this Hannah was a very active sassy child with her big brother Connor Goedel [13] who attends Lisha Kill Middle School & her little sister Emma who is 2. Dad Joe is an Associate Director of Facilities at RPI. This illness came very suddenly in February and initially was misdiagnosed but when the treatment for that illness failed the biopsy was done and after a very long week of waiting revealed severe Aplastic Anemia. The team at Albany Medical Center Pediatric Hematology and Oncology has been extremely aggressive and very costly intensive treatments have been done over the past few weeks but Hannah’s progress has been slow and now has stalled. In order to support her she requires weekly blood and blood product transfusions. She can no longer go to her day care and must remain housebound because her counts are consistently low. She’s at high risk for infection even a slight cold will put her back in the hospital and could have dire consequences for her. Hannah’s days consists of either being admitted to the hospital, going at least twice a week to get blood work done to watch her counts, and getting transfusions and supportive therapy. On April 24th after weeks of praying for some positive progress, knowing options were running out, the last hope difficult decision has been made to proceed with a bone marrow transplant and not in the murky future like the Campo’s originally thought but due to Hannah’s critical need in the next 3-6 weeks! There is a blessing in this that unlike some families who wait a long time Hannah [if her blood hasn’t changed from all the transfusions] has a match - her little sister Emma! Although this is wonderful news it also means Emma has to be exposed to procedures and medications on a daily basis like Hannah and that the Campo family will have 2 of their 3 children in very serious costly medical situations. As they travel to Strong Memorial Hospital, Transplant Center in Rochester NY over the next 4 weeks beginning the difficult and arduous process of bone marrow transplant with their 2 daughters – their son Connor will remain here attending Lisha Kill Middle School under the watchful eyes of family and friends. The doctors at Strong are confident that this will cure Hannah of severe Aplastic Anemia and in time she will resume a full and complete life and Emma who should have no lasting effects from being a donor will forever be her big sisters guardian angel! Friends and family of the Campos are rallying in fundraising efforts to help offset the enormous costs of the treatments, the lost wages, travel expenses and everything else that goes along with this kind of catastrophic illness. Heather served our country twice in war and is an American hero and now Hannah faces her own war and is our hero – will you be hers??? :-)
