Jade’s Fight for Life Blood

Hi, my name is Anna and I am fund raising for my amazing sister-in-law Jade Johnson. In November Jade started losing energy, to the point where she could barely function with basic everyday life. Her 12 year old son, had to basically do all the household chores and cooking, because even such a small act of sitting up caused her to be out of breath. Her husband, Ben, was traveling for work. When he came home on December 8 he took her to Urgent care where they immediately sent her to the emergency room. After some tests they realized her platelet count was only around 9k, a normal low of platelet count should be around 150k. They could not figure out what was causing the drop. Even after giving her transfusions, she continued to drop around 20k a day. After trying for a week every test they could think of at the Joplin, MO hospital, they sent her in an ambulance to the KU hospital in Kansas City, 3 hours away.

For weeks the doctors and specialists did every test they could think of on Jade. And each day, her body would not hold the daily transfusions for long. Ben and their son, stayed as long as they could with her in Kansas City; Ben using up all his vacation and sick days. On Dec 22, her son’s 13th birthday, the hospital sent her home to be with her family for Christmas.

Jade became a daily outpatient reliant on transfusions just to be able to function. It was not until Jan 8th that the hospital was able to diagnose what was wrong with her.

Jade has Aplastic Anemia, which was pretty much a death sentence not too long ago. There are approximately 300 people each year in the US that are diagnosed with this disease. There is temporary help that uses horse blood that could last a few months to a few years. The cure is a marrow transplant. With this cure, once a donor is located, Jade has to spend 4 weeks in the hospital and then 10 weeks within 30 minutes of KU hospital with a family member continuously within arms’s reach, just in case of her collapsing.

Currently, Jade has daily transfusions to keep her platelet count functional. Each day she has to be driven 30 minutes to the hospital where she stays several hours for her transfusions.

Obviously Jade has been unable to go back to work and Ben has missed work because of the daily drives. This whole process, so far, has taken them to their limit of finances and it is not even to the bone marrow transplant and hospital stay stage.

Their son was born very premature and was in NICU fighting for his life for months. They have barely paid off the medical bills for their son’s care as a baby.

So, I am asking for help for Jade’s medical procedures while she goes through this life threatening experience. They have already faithfully paid for one huge medical hardship and could use help with this hurdle in their lives.

I do have to say, through all this Jade stays positive and cheers for each small miracle. Even if it is just holding her count for a few more days. She has always seen the happiness of the little things in life. She is a gift to those around her.