One family relies on blood donations to keep their 2-year-old’s heart pumping.
Like every 2-year-old, Henry Soileau loves to play.
“He likes to be outside, run around. He’s very independent, so he wants to do everything himself, if he wants to do something, he wants to help,” describes Ryan Soileau, Henry’s father. However, when Henry is not playing outside, he spends a lot of time at the hospital getting blood transfusions.
“It’s all he knows, it’s hey every two weeks am going to be getting stuck, I am going to be in the hospital for six hours,” explains Soileau.
Just six weeks after Henry was born, Soileau says they found out he had aplastic anemia. It’s a condition where the body does not create enough red blood cells.
“We tell him, ‘hey it’s time to go to the hospital.’ He says, ‘oh, I am going to see my friends.’ So, he is friends with all of the nurses, and all of the nurses love him. But he doesn’t want to get in the car, he knows. He says, ‘daddy, mommy, I don’t want my blood,’” says Soileau.
However, there is hope for Henry at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“So, once we get his levels down, they will be able to bring us to the main site in Memphis, where we’d have the facilities to get a bone marrow transplant, and with the hope that it will him into remission. So, he won’t need blood transfusions,” says Soileau.
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