Celebrating the community’s young champions this International Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
Meet Mackenzie ‘Mighty Mack’ Friedman who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) at just four months old on May 2021. With help of the community and mountains of hope, the now one-year-old is cancer free.
In International Childhood Cancer Awareness Month it is important to recognise the courageous children and teenagers who are currently fighting their battle with this disease.
One very special young lady in the community is Mackenzie ‘Mighty Mack’ Friedman who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) at just four months old on May 12, 2021.
According to mother Megan Harrington-Johnson, everything changed in an instant – from Mackenzie having a fever and possible bacterial infection to total disbelief that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
“We’d heard about other people’s parents being diagnosed with cancer, but never someone’s child.”
While it was a long and tenuous journey, there was light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a bone marrow transplant match, as previously reported in Mighty Mack finds her match [posted online on October 15, 2021]. As of January 2022, the now one-year-old was declared cancer free.
Harrington-Johnson emphasised that Mackenzie, along with the rest of her family, would not have been able go through this cancer journey had it not been for the community that surrounded them.
“We couldn’t have survived this extremely tough journey without the support of our incredible doctors, our wonderful family, friends and extended community – Mack’s amazing army. Mack’s Army is literally [made up of] hundreds of people working behind the scenes organising blood and bone marrow drives,” said Megan Harrington-Johnson.
In the latest update posted to the Mighty Mack Facebook page on September 12, the one-year-old continues to make progress, both high in energy and using her legs more each day.
“Today we have a perfectly happy, healthy little girl. She would never have survived had it not been for the person who signed up to the bone marrow registry where we found her match.”
If you would like to become a bone marrow donor, visit www.dkms-africa.org for more information.
Related articles:
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/312749/how-taryn-of-the-choc-foundation-began-her-journey-with-the-organisation/
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/310263/championing-childhood-cancer-together-choc/
