An Out-of-this-World Cake for Amazing Jackie

Jackie was diagnosed with AML, acute myelogenous leukemia, on June 11th, 2019, right before her 11th birthday. She ended up on ECMO ten days into her treatment and was intubated for almost three weeks. ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) is a way to allow a machine to filter and provide oxygen to the blood when the heart and/or lungs are not working sufficiently. Since Jackie was on ECMO for her birthday last year, she unfortunately missed her birthday completely.

Her perseverance is truly inspirational and she has overcome many tremendous feats. After being on ECMO, Jackie had to relearn how to walk, talk, and how to do everyday tasks.

Jackie received a Bone Marrow Transplant on October 18th, 2019. Her older brother saved her life, acting as her donor when there was not a single match on the national registry. She was put on dialysis shortly after her transplant for about 2 weeks and then was finally released home. She was inpatient for six very long months. Jackie has had nine rounds of chemotherapy in total, one week of radiation therapy, and three Donor Lymphocyte Infusions with one more to go.

Jackie and her family celebrated her 12th birthday with an Icing Smiles Cake provided by Sugar Angel Maziel, whose work was truly out of this world! It was a fun and imaginative galaxy themed cake. She couldn’t have a normal party due to Covid-19, but here at Icing Smiles, we’re glad to be able to celebrate amazing kids like Jackie, even if outer space-themed parties and cakes take longer to “planet”!

With smiles + cake,

Olivia Graupmann

Icing Smiles Blog Writer