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By Elizabeth Jane Walker
Alejandra Canedo shares the wisdom she has accrued through the transplant process.
Like three jewels on a delicate chain, Alejandra Canedo, her mother and grandmother sit hand in hand on a plush couch in Target House, the long-term residence for patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The bond linking the three generations is unbreakable, forged through adversity and tempered by hope.
Only two months before, the trio had arrived in Memphis, butterfly beats of panic fluttering in their stomachs. Alejandra, also known as Ale (pronounced “alley”), had already undergone two years of grueling treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia at a Florida hospital. When the cancer returned, a bone marrow transplant offered her best chance for survival. Ale desperately needed a donor, preferably one who shared her ethnic background. The Hispanic community rallied around her, initiating a national marrow donor drive.
“Hispanics are one of the least-registered ethnic groups in the registry,” Ale told her mom, Leslie Canedo-Gómez. “They probably aren’t going to find a match for me, but they may find one for somebody else. I’ll be happy if just one person gets a match.”
As a result of that drive, scores of Hispanics registered to be marrow donors. But Ale still lacked a perfect match. Then she learned that she might be eligible to receive a transplant at St. Jude, using her mom as the donor. Both the family and their doctor were apprehensive about that prospect.
“I explained that our outcomes for a mismatched transplant at St. Jude are as good as or even a little better than the survival rate for matched transplants,” says Wing Leung, MD, PhD, chair of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at St. Jude. “And, we do that without the use of radiation treatment.”
Ale was referred to St. Jude and made the journey to Memphis.
Before her transplant, chemotherapy treatments wiped out Ale’s immune system, leaving her as fragile as spun glass. But Ale maintained her core of inner strength and determination. After all, this was a girl who had managed to graduate from high school two years early in spite of undergoing leukemia treatment. Instead of relaxing in bed, Ale mustered her resolve to meet the objectives she set for herself.
“The transplant team compiles a ‘to-do list’ for the kids of everything that they need to accomplish each day: mouth care, baths, exercise,” Leslie explains. “Ale’s an overachiever, so she was really happy to have goals.” The teen’s regular activities included walking a mile each day (11 times around the transplant unit) and knitting a blanket for one of her clinicians who was expecting a baby. Ale also found time to read books, correspond with her boyfriend and complete two paintings for inclusion in the hospital’s Teen Art Gallery.
Ale reflects that one of the worst parts of the experience was the uncertainty she and her mom faced before arriving at St. Jude. “We really didn’t know what to expect,” she says. “I’d heard how hard bone marrow transplants were and how dangerous they were.”
Ale, her mom and grandmother agree that St. Jude staff allayed their fears.
“If I were giving advice to a patient considering going through transplant, I’d say to just have faith—to know that everything that happens occurs for a reason,” Ale says. “I was freaked out when I was in Miami and we didn’t have a donor, and I was thinking, ‘The kids who have perfect matches are so lucky.’ You think at that moment it’s a bad thing, but everything works out for the best.”
After spending the past two years in treatment elsewhere, Ale marvels at the positive environment she has encountered at St. Jude.
“My doctors are amazing; my nurses are amazing; everybody I’ve met here has been great,” she says. “There’s this general feeling of hope and happiness at St. Jude. You would expect that kids who are sick would be sad and mopey all day, but then you come here and you see them running around and happy. A lot of the time, you don’t even remember why you’re here. I love that—and it’s all because of the staff and the donors and everyone else who works to make this place as outstanding as it is.”
When she returns home to Miami, Ale plans to take online college classes while regaining her strength and preparing to enroll at St. John’s University in New York. Eventually, she hopes to earn a graduate degree, marry her high school sweetheart, have two children, pursue a writing career and support the hospital that saved her life.
“If I ever become a best-selling author—or even if I just write books that are sold on the sale racks—I want to give back to St. Jude,” Ale says. “Ultimately, they gave me my life back. I want to thank them and to let everybody know that it’s my promise to do whatever I can to help St. Jude as much as possible.”
Promise magazine, Winter 2012
Editor's note: Ale passed away April 6, 2012.
