Celebrating Bone Marrow Buddies

In 2016, Aja was diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia, a bone marrow failure disease. She was also diagnosed with thyroid cancer. After two years of treatment with St. Jude, Aja and her family traveled to the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin for a cutting edge bone marrow transplant called a Haploid Transplant. Aja’s oldest sister, Maya, was her half match donor. Maya was in college at the time and took a break from school to be the bone marrow donor.

Aja is now two years post-transplant and is home and back in school after two years. Her care was transferred back to St. Jude which she sees monthly for lab work. Every six months she goes back up to the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin for more lab work with the bone marrow transplant clinic, thyroid ultrasounds and endocrinologist follow up.

In March, Aja’s family celebrated her Re-Birthday with an insanely delicious and ginormous cake thanks to Sugar Angel Kelly. March 15th was Aja’s Bone Marrow Transplant Second Anniversary. It was a special day because they celebrated Maya’s older sister as well! Now they are both bone marrow buddies and have overcome tremendous challenges together.

Receiving a memorable Dream Cake from Icing Smiles made by Sugar Angel Kelly Rogers made celebrating the day extra special. Kelly made the cake with bone marrow themed colors of blue and green. Between the COVID19 lockdown and Aja’s compromised health condition, Aja couldn’t have a gathering of friends over, but it didn’t stop them from delivering slices of the deliciousness to a few of them!

With smiles + celebrations + cake,

Olivia Graupmann

Icing Smiles Blog Writer