Whitby girl with rare blood disease to have stem cell transplant this week

A girl with a rare blood disease from Whitby is set to have a transplant to save her life this week.

Evie Hodgson, 8, was diagnosed with aplastic anemia last year on the 28th of May, during the first lockdown.

Last month, a donor was found and the transplant will take place this Thursday (14th January).

Evie's mum, Tina, said:

"After Christmas, there was that stage between Christmas and New Year where I personally really struggled because I knew what was coming and I just wanted to get on with it. I think Evie felt the same. She just wants to get on with the treatment and try and get her back to full recovery as soon as possible.

"I feel that we can do it. We just feel really positive and we feel that this is the way to get Evie mended and back to full fitness. It's so easy to worry and start thinking of 'what if this happens? What if that happens?' But we are not in control of this and we've just got to leave it up to the experts.

"I'm just there to support Evie and literally be at her beck and call to make her feel as comfortable as possible and as happy as possible. I mean, she's never seen me breakdown and she never will as far as I'm concerned because if she sees I'm OK, then she's OK and we're very much a team like that.

"Evie's had chemotherapy and she will have intensive chemotherapy right through until transplant day and the day before, she'll have some radiation as well just to prepare her body and hopefully that will allow her body to accept the new stem cells from the donor.

"For Evie to receive the new stem cells, it's literally just going through a central line and it's very similar to a blood transfusion but over a longer period of time. It's as simple as that for her to accept the new donor cells.

"Evie's got some really big boxes that she wants to tick. As soon as she's allowed to travel and when Covid-19 allows, she's desperate to go to London, she wants to see some West End shows and another thing she wants to tick off her list is to go to Paris."

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