Help Save Aksel

Aksel is a strong, sweet, dynamic and charming 3 year-old child who loves to dance and jump. His favorite hobby is to play in the rain.

Aksel’s life changed last year during Thanksgiving. He started feeling sick and by December he was diagnosed with HLH with only a 5% chance of survival. Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a life-threatening rare blood disease often caused by an inherited problem of the immune system. Aksel’s only chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant from someone compatible. None of the 12 million people already registered as potential donors in the U.S. have matched him.

Aksel is currently stable, but he is not allowed to go to school, public playgrounds or play with his friends, since any small virus could reactivate his HLH and be fatal for him. This is why Aksel urgently needs your help. The only cure for Aksel is a Bone Marrow Transplant, but at the moment doctors have not yet found a good match.

You can help save Aksel and thousands of other patients like him.  Register as a potential marrow donor by completing a consent form and doing a simple cheek cell swab.  Share Aksel’s story and help bring more awareness of HLH to help save other children.

Little is known about this disease and a lot of research is being done at the moment to find an alternative cure. HLH is difficult to diagnose and very often can be fatal.

The most likely HLA match for Aksel is someone of mixed northern European & Latin American heritage. If you or someone in your network has this genetic background, you may be the one to save Aksel’s life.

Please help us by joining the bone marrow registry online at http://join.bethematch.org/SaveAksel or at one of the Icla da Silva Foundation marrow drives at www.icla.org

To learn more about Aksel, please visit his website at http://www.saveaksel.com/