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‘Surprise’ Gives
Sister New Lease on Life
When she learned she was pregnant in 1993, the last thing on Roxi
Rudlaff’s mind was having another child. Rudlaff and her husband, William,
already had two daughters, and she recalls, “We thought our family was
complete. Natalie was a complete surprise.”
As it turned out, Natalie was also something of a miracle—for
her sister Emily.
Emily, who will turn 6 in March, was born with a bone marrow
dysfunction that required her to have blood transfusions every month. Her
doctors recommended a bone marrow transplant to try to correct the problem, but
none of her family members was a matched donor. When Rudlaff mentioned to
Emily’s hematologist that she was expecting a baby, he told her about the
possibility of doing a cord blood transplant.
“I had never even heard of such a thing,” she
says. “We were so lucky to be given this opportunity. We didn’t know
what we were going to do with Emily. Sometimes we felt we were dealing with a
time bomb, always worrying when an infection might strike.”
Emily’s condition, which was never formally diagnosed,
resulted in very low red blood cell levels, as well as occasional severely
decreased white cell levels. Attempts to treat it with steroids and other drugs
never led to long-term positive results. “Nothing was working,”
Rudlaff says.
The hematologist explained that although cord blood
transplantation was a relatively new procedure, it was an excellent possibility
for Emily. At the time, no cases of severe graft-versus-host disease had been
reported in patients who had undergone this type of transplant. The procedure
involved no trauma to the donor—as Roxi says, “We were happy we
didn’t have to cause the baby any discomfort.”
Knowing that Emily had a chance at a reprieve from her monthly
transfusions, the Rudlaffs began arranging to
have the cord blood transplant done. Natalie was born at the end
of January 1994 at a hospital near their home in Elkhart, Ind.
The cord blood was harvested immediately, carefully frozen and
transported to Indiana University where it was stored until it was time for the
transplant. “The girls were a perfect HLA match,” Rudlaff said.
“It was wonderful news.”
The transplant was done in February 1995 at the University of
Chicago Wyler Children’s Hospital. The Rudlaffs stayed at the nearby
Ronald McDonald House, so that one parent could be with Emily constantly during
her seven-week hospitalization.
Rudlaff remembers, “Waiting was kind of scary. The cord blood
stem cells took longer to engraft than we hoped. They had to use every drop of
the cord blood.” But the cells finally engrafted, and the transplant was a
success.
Emily has been off transfusions since March. Her appetite is
improving along with her disposition, and, though still small for her age, she
is showing definite signs of growth.
“She was very, very ill for a very long time, but
things are looking great. When a full year has passed—and we’re just
about there—we’ll all feel like ‘it’s over.’ ”
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