While watching 3-year-old Mads Pomranky excitedly play on a Tuesday afternoon with his 1-year-old sister, Valen, one would never guess the difficult health struggles hes overcome.

At 5 months old, Mads was diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia, a rare cancer of the blood that affects young children. The diagnosis eventually turned to acute myeloid leukemia and was treatable only through a transplant from a stem cell donor.

For parents Jennifer and Derrick Pomranky, of Bourbonnais, they made the immediate decision to approach the challenge with positivity, designating their son Mighty Mads.

Its pretty difficult to watch your little baby go through this, Jennifer said. I feel like right away, we both had the mentality of, Hes gonna get through this, were gonna get through this.

We got through it one day at a time, added Derrick.

As an infant, Mads was often sick with congestion or runny nose. It was a pediatrician, Dr. Josefina Batista at Riverside Healthcare, that noticed his spleen was enlarged. Further testing would show his red blood cell count being low while his white cell count was high. These red flags led to the eventual leukemia diagnosis.

His pediatrician caught it so fast that we had time on our side that they could pinpoint the diagnosis and take their time with the chemo and wean him into it a little bit, said Jennifer while flipping through a book the family made for Mads donor. The book details Mads journey with cancer and treatment.

The book documents that Mads had six rounds of chemo, 83 doses of chemo, 31 blood transfusions, 31 platelet transfusions, 11 bone marrow biopsies, five spinal taps with chemo, two skin biopsies and one cryo transfusion.

His parents noted they were lucky in the search for a donor, as Mads health care team found a 10 out of 10 match through the stem cell/bone marrow transplant registry, DKMS.

The donation was from a young woman, Kaelynn Speed, out of Cincinnati.

Weve been an advocate for [DKMS], Jennifer said, noting that the DKMS shirts her kids were wearing were given to the family when they first met Speed through a donor meeting facilitated by the donor registry.

By the time doctors were able to begin providing transplant care to Mads then 13 months old the world was in the throes of COVID-19. As a result, Speeds cell donation had to be frozen for two weeks before being administered to Mads.

Mom Jennifer said that the process took about an hour and was similar to a blood transfusion.

Now, Mads has to have bloodwork done every three months to make sure everything is on the up and up. Additionally, he does a survivorship follow up at Comer Childrens Hospital, where he had his treatments.

Hes doing great. Hes very rambunctious and a normal toddler, said Jennifer.

Born May 16, 2019, Mads now has double the annual celebrations first, his birthday, and second, what his parents have dubbed his rebirthday on June 17, which is when he had the transplant.

Before and after transplant, he was really sick, Derrick said. So that was a bad time.

When he was going through all of it, he missed a lot of his milestones. He was basically reborn again, added Jennifer.

LIFE AND DEATH

The family still keeps in touch with Speed and her family; they received her information on the one-year anniversary of Mads transplant and set up a Zoom meeting. The families met in person last summer.

Shes the nicest person, she was only 19 when she signed up [to donate], Jennifer said. Derrick added that shes studying nursing.

Between work and two toddlers, the Pomranky parents certainly have their hands full, but they always make time to encourage people to sign up to be stem cell and/or bone marrow donors.

You could potentially save a life, Jennifer said. Its a matter of life and death, literally.

Excerpt from:
Bourbonnais toddler beats leukemia with stem cell transplant - Kankakee Daily Journal