Propser Rallies To Save Child's Life
PROSPER (CBSDFW.COM) - More than a hundred people in Prosper tested Sunday to see if they could save a six-year-old boy's life.
Aidan Peterson has been given just weeks to find a life-saving bone marrow match. He was recently diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia.
As a baby, Peterson had a different type of cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and underwent years of treatment and chemotherapy. Peterson was declared cancer-free by doctors a year ago but during a recent follow-up visit discovered the new more aggressive form of leukemia.
"I was devastated," Peterson's mother Candice Gaudet recalled when she learned her son had cancer again. "But a day or two later, we were like okay we'll do it again. We'll get it done."
Peterson's latest bout with cancer will require a bone marrow transplant. The six-year-old does not have any siblings, who are often a match, so his family along with the non-profit Delete Blood Cancer held a bone marrow registration drive Sunday at the Lighthouse Christian Fellowship Church in Prosper.
Of the 121 people who registered at the drive, each has a one in one-thousand chance to being a match for Peterson.
"That's not that bad," said Jenny Pau, who came to be tested after reading Peterson's story on Facebook. "There are what 12,000 people in Prosper so there are probably 12 of us wondering around,"
Amy Roseman, the donor recruitment coordinator for Delete Blood Cancer, said even if Peterson's match is not found among those registered Sunday, those who were tested could be a match one of the thousands of others in need of a marrow transplant.
"Right now as it stands only 4 out of ten people will find a donor," said Roseman.
Gaudet said her son, who has spent nearly his entire life at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, is determined to beat the odds.
"He doesn't understand failure," she said. "He is six years and he doesn't know losing. He only knows winning."
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