Deryn Blackwell, 14, was diagnosed with leukaemia and Langerhans Cell Sarcoma, and was given until early December 2013 to live. Blackwell is one of only five people in the world with Langerhans Cell Sarcoma, and the only one with the combined cancers.
Blackwell was prepared to die. In fact, he enthusiastically planned the details of his own funeral. He was to wear his pink Mohawk hair; his coffin was to be carried by the same hearse that carried Winston Churchill; he had already picked his music, “Move Your Feet”, as his body was to be moved for cremation; and relatives were to wear pre-selected fancy clothes or costumes.
Four years ago, Blackwell was diagnosed with leukaemia. After just 18 months, his doctors informed the Blackwells that their son also had Langerhans Cell Sarcoma. His only hope was a bone marrow transplant, so the family moved from Norfolk to temporary dwellings in Bristol City, where Blackwell underwent the procedures.
The first transplant was in March 2013, but it failed. They tried another three times in the following months, and they all failed as well. This time, Blackwell’s immune system was compromised, and he had bugs and infections. The doctors called the family to inform them that hope for their son had come to an end. He didn’t have until Christmas of 2013. At this point, Blackwell had been in and out of hospitals for four years, his body had been subjected to over three hundred medical procedures, radiation, chemotherapy, and hazardous drugs and antibiotics.
Blackwell’s family decided that it was time to prepare their son for the next step – dying. They took him off his antibiotics and life-supports, and made every day a happy one for the boy. They celebrated Christmas on December 14, 2013. What happened next was unexpected. Christmas rolled by, and so did New Year’s Eve, and Blackwell was still alive.
One day in January, Blackwell accidentally removed the bandages that wrapped his infected finger. They worriedly checked his uncovered finger but, to their amazement, the finger was completely healed. The doctors could not explain it. His organs, too, continued to function despite the doctors’ predictions that removing his antibiotics would shut them down. The boy also started producing white blood cells, and the transplanted bone marrow had successfully grafted. Blackwell miraculously lives.
The Blackwells have not yet totally come to terms with the miracle. They are in the midst of forming a charity for teenagers stricken with cancer.