Mother's wish for homecoming

Excerpt from The Ann Arbor [MI] News

December 25, 2001

Alex Gray's cure has made him terribly sick, but it could give him a longer life.

The nine-year-old from Ann Arbor who worships a wrestler named The Rock sits at the University of Michigan's Mott Children's Hospital, where he has been since October, wishing he could go home for Christmas.

Alex was born with sickle cell disease, which blocks blood flow to vital organs, often resulting in early death.

In one of the first such procedures in the country, blood from the umbilical cord of Alex's sister was frozen after her birth two years ago and transplanted into him Oct. 24. Prior to the transplant, he received chemotherapy to wipe out his bone marrow, and hopefully his disease.

The sickle cell appears to be cured, doctors say.

Alex, who would be in fourth grade at Haisley Elementary School this year, has had a childhood ruled by sickle cell. Shortness of breath, frequent pain and pneumonia have prevented him from playing outside with friends or engaging in football and other contact sports he loves.

His symptoms are caused by an inherited condition that distorts his red blood cells into the shape of a sickle, preventing them from flowing properly to the liver, kidney, brain and other organs. The disease is most common in African-Americans.

After Alex's mother, Lisa Maddox, became pregnant in 1998, she learned that immature stem cells in umbilical cord blood showed promise as a cure for sickle cell. So her daughter Keyonna's cord blood was saved after her birth in May 1999 and stored at a private facility in Arizona. Keyonna is a carrier for sickle cell but doesn't have the disease.