Versiti - Isaac Walker | Impact Stories
 

Isaac Walker

“I don’t want kids to go through as much pain as I had to.”

Isaac Walker

Isaac Walker has beaten childhood leukemia not once, but twice. In 2010, when Isaac was 2, his mother Fawnda noticed he was running a fever, had a cough, wasn’t eating and was sleeping nearly 20 hours a day. She and her husband Andrew took him to the hospital, where they got the devastating news: Isaac had cancer. 

“I was numb and in complete disbelief,” Fawnda says. “He was in very critical condition. His white blood cell count was at 674,000; the typical diagnosis of leukemia is about 50,000.”

Isaac endured grueling chemotherapy twice a week for three years and received countless blood and platelet transfusions to help keep him strong. Eventually, he went into remission, but his cancer would return when he was 8 years old. That time, his oncologist told him his best hope for survival was a bone marrow transplant.

In 2016, Isaac received a lifesaving transplant from a donor in Texas. “You could see that he started feeling better right away,” Fawnda says. “Before his bone marrow transplant, he went into heart failure from all the chemo he was getting. We almost lost him; it was scary.”

Because the chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant upended his immune system, Isaac receives weekly infusions to boost his body’s production of B cells, which help fight off infections. Though he will likely need to receive these infusions for life, he is an otherwise healthy teenager who is homeschooled and works part-time for a local mechanic—something he hopes to pursue as a career.

These days, Fawnda is grateful for her son’s health and for the blood donors who helped to get him there. “Blood donors helped save my son’s life,” she says.

Impact Stories | Blood Donation

 
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Misty Welch
Versiti Blood Center of Indiana’s Misty Welch had always wanted a son and when she was expecting a baby boy, it was a dream come true. However, their dream quickly turned into a nightmare. Read her story.
 
Become an Organ and Tissue Donor
Learn more about how to sign up as an organ, tissue and eye donor and how organ donation saves and enhances lives in our communities.
 
Financial Giving
Versiti Blood Research Institute Foundation accepts financial and philanthropic gifts from donors, which helps to propel lifesaving research.
 
Impact Stories
Your blood, organ and tissue, and other donations directly impact lives in your community. Read a few of the examples of some of the lives that have been changed for the better.
 
Ways to Give
You can support Versiti’s mission in several ways, including donating blood, hosting a blood drive, joining the organ and tissue donor registry, and more.