April 21st, Caylee Carlson had a bone marrow biopsy looking for a cause for her symptoms of bruising, rashes, swelling in her legs and feet, also dizziness and fatigue. The results of the biopsy confirmed a diagnosis of Myelodysplastic Syndrome known as MDS with excess blasts, High Level. MDS is a form of cancer that starts in the bone marrow and puts her high risk for developing into Acute Myeloid Leukemia in the future. Caylee has a great team of local doctors and has her first meeting with the Emory Cancer Hospital in Atlanta on May 12th…this new team of doctors will set the plan for treatment, but will most likely consist of chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant/or stem cell transplant.
Caylee is the most beautiful young woman with a heart thats pure as gold….born October 20th 2001 the first daughter of Alison Claffey ( Cathey ) and first grandchild to Jeff and Carolyn Smith…and my pride and joy niece. She is also the best older sister to her two younger siblings Wyatt and Shelby. Caylee is a rock for my sister, an extra pair of helping hands with the young ones, or working on the farm…she absoulutly loves the farm life and has become great with flipping cows and goats and earns money at local auctions doing so, she has also learned how to help when the animals give birth on the farm, her compassion for animals is a thing of beauty. There is an aspect to her life that some people might not be aware of because many days she seems like a perfectly normal young lady yet in the early stages of Caylee’s of growth, we as a family noticed challenges in her mental development and after seeking medical advice and rounds of testing Caylee was confirmed IQ deficient. Her intellectual disability is going to make life with MDS even more of a struggle, as she is not capable of taking in all the information and making informed decisions on her own. Fortunately she has the most loving family that will help her navigate this new journey, all praying for a favorable outcome.
We are looking for financial support for Caylee and her family, as the medical bills have already started to overwhelm my sister and her loving step father Josh Cathey who run a small farm in Northern Georgia. All funds raised will help with medical bills and travel expenses, especially seeing that Emory is about an 1hr drive each way, also with hotel accommodations in downtown Atanta when Caylee is getting treatments. We desperately need to upgrade her bedroom at home, a project was started over a year ago to create a addtional room for her, and now we need to finish it asap, because she will need a safe, hosptial grade room to recover in after treatments.
Our family is grateful for all the love and support that we have recieved since the news came out a week ago…its a hard pill to swallow ( asking for money) and if you cant send a donation at this time we just ask for everyone to keep Caylee in your thoughts and prayers….we come from a long line of cancer survivors, our family knows the ugliness of the disease, yet navigating MDS is new to all of us and very scray especially knowing that without a transplant there is no cure. Caylee can live a good life with MDS if we can get her levels down with treaments….and that gives us HOPE, and with everyone coming together to help Caylee I believe this young woman will move mountains.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and a bigger thank you for donations …please any amount will be helpful
Erin May Claffey (Loving Aunt to Caylee Carlson)