Girl with rare illness going home after nearly a month isolated in hospital
Hillary McKibbin, the six-year-old Manotick girl being treated for a rare blood disease, is going home.
After 27 days in isolation for immunosuppressive therapy treatment, McKibbin is being discharged from CHEO on Monday, her mother Kelly wrote in a blog post Sunday afternoon.
“We are ecstatic. We can’t wait to sit in the backyard. Cook. Walk up and down the stairs. The simple stuff,” she wrote.
Hillary received a hemoglobin transfusion on Saturday and will receive a platelet transfusion Monday in preparation for her discharge, Kelly McKibbin said. However, she is still in a severe condition and will be required to avoid germs and infection.
Hillary was diagnosed with aplastic anemia in May. Her condition was initially considered moderate, but dropped to severe in recent weeks.
Hillary’s story and her family’s campaign called #StartWithHillary, has inspired hundreds of people to register to be bone-marrow donors. Potential donors can register with a simple cheek swab.
The first cheek swab clinic was held on June 24, attracting 630 would-be donors — so many there were not enough kits.
Registering to be a bone-marrow donor improves the chances of the 800 people currently looking for matches in Canada. Chris van Doorn of Canadian Blood Services said in a previous interview there is a particular need for ethnically diverse men to register to donate.
In the meantime Hillary will require medication at home, will visit CHEO twice a week for blood tests and will need several more transfusions.
Although there is still work to be done, there is a lot of optimism around the discharge, Kelly McKibbin wrote.
“The fight isn’t over. The game has just changed. We now have the home advantage,” she wrote. “We’ve come to believe that Hillary was chosen for this. Chosen just like the rest of the kids here at CHEO — to teach the rest of us a thing or two about life and how to live it.” lcarroll@postmedia.com