Cora Dalik, known as Cora Bean to her family and friends, is a darling eighteen month old baby girl. On July 25, 2011, Cora was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia. Aplastic Anemia is a rare disease of the bone marrow with just three diagnoses for every one million people in the United States. Essentially, the bone marrow stops producing enough red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets for the body.
The preferred treatment for Aplastic Anemia is a bone marrow transplant. Luckily, Cora has a very brave big brother, Andrew (age 5) (newly nicked named Captain CORAgeous), who was a perfect genetic match. Cora received chemo therapy treatments to make way for Andrew’s new, healthy marrow. On September 2, 2011, Andrew underwent the surgery to harvest his bone marrow and doctors administered it to Cora the same day. The doctors call this Cora’s “new birthday.”
Cora is doing amazingly well! Her blood counts are steadily rising! After only a few weeks, Cora was released from the hospital, and is at home healing with her family. Even though doctors say that it will be a full year before Cora's immune system has fully recovered, all early signs point to a successful bone marrow transplant!
