A 6 year old girl saves the life of a little brother by donating bone marrow to the hip

A brave six-year-old girl saved her little brother's life after demanding that she become her bone marrow donor, said their proud parents.

Caleb Ashby, four months old, would have died if her sister Sophia had not volunteered to become her donor, saying, "If I give my bones to Caleb, he will live".

The baby boy, whose family hails from Barwell, in Leicestershire, was at risk of dying of a condition as basic as the common cold because of a shortage of blood cells to help fight infections.

The child was in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant and Sophie, a schoolgirl, was 100%.

She had the bone marrow removed from her hip before it was given to Caleb, a poor man, a few beds away.

Parents Kelsey Stynes, 28, and Lee Ashby, 31, had to wait two weeks to discover that Caleb's body had 100% accepted bone marrow from her sister.

Four weeks later, Caleb is about to recover completely and Sophia, protectress, who has stronger ties than ever with her younger brother, refused to leave her side.

She recovered from her operation but attended the hospital school after receiving special permission to closely monitor her brother until he returned home in six to eight weeks .

Beautician Kelsey said, "It makes me so emotional to think about it.

"I am completely overwhelmed by all this, she marvels me, she has always been fantastic."

"She has not stopped smiling and she knows she did a good thing, but I do not know if she knows how incredible she is.

"If she did not want to continue, then we would not have Caleb here with us now.

"She saved Caleb's life, she did a remarkable job and without it we would not have reached the level we are now."

Kelsey, a mother of four, who has two other sons, Zachary, one, and Tyler, eight, discovered that Caleb would be born with a heart defect when she was 22 weeks pregnant.

He had an arterial trunk – one big blood vessel leaving his heart instead of two – and a hole in his heart when he was born last December.

Barely two weeks old, Caleb underwent a major eight-hour operation in January to insert a plastic stent into his heart to do the work of the blood vessel without which he was born.

Caleb spent five days in intensive care and the doctors quickly realized that the newborn's wound was not healing.

Other tests revealed that he had "no white blood at all", which meant he was at serious risk of infection.

The doctors warned that he could be killed by a cold and that his body was too weak to be able to properly recover from heart surgery.

They discovered that he was suffering from bone marrow failure – when the soft center of the bones did not produce enough healthy blood cells to meet the needs of the body.

Kelsey says the doctors said that if they had been made aware of Caleb's blood condition, they would not have performed the heart surgery.

The family was told that the only option for saving their life was a bone marrow transplant, which would give them a new immune system.

Kelsey said, "It was very touching and we are going at that time. We thought we had the worst after his operation.

"It was a very scary time for us, we had to trust the surgeons with our baby.

"I was so relieved that everything went as planned, I fell to the ground."

Kelsey, Lee, Sophia and Zachery were tested as a potential match on February 18th.

Zachery was dismissed, but doctors knew, even before the results were known, that as parents of Caleb, Kelsey and Lee's bone marrow was at least 50%.

Due to the urgency and severity of Caleb's condition, the doctors had prepared a blood transfusion using Lee's partial matching before the results were made available, Feb. 27.

A partial transfusion would be less likely to succeed and would require Lee's blood to be handled in a laboratory prior to surgery.

The major risk is that the transfusion fails and Caleb's body throws back his father's bone marrow – putting his life at risk again.

But the same day, Lee was preparing to undergo the transfusion, tests revealed that Sophia was a 100% match – offering her little brother a lifesaving lifeline.

Kelsey said, "I had mixed feelings." Sophia was so willing, but I did not want to let her go if she did not want to.

"But she said" I want to help … "She said" if I give my bone to Caleb, he will live ".

The doctors had already told Sophia that the results of the test could mean for her if her bone marrow ended up being perfectly compatible.

Kelsey says her daughter "smiled and was happy" when the family discovered that her bone marrow matched 100%.

Sophia was subjected to a series of psychological badessments before being allowed to be the donor of her brother.

She had the option of not participating – but kept her word and was brave with the blood marrow donation on March 5th.

During her speech, Sophia was subjected to general anesthesia before stem cells were removed from the bone marrow in her hip bone, ready to be transfused to her little brother.

Then, after undergoing a week of chemotherapy to prepare blood for a transfusion, Caleb underwent his second rescue operation on March 6th.

If there was no opportunity to save lives – Kelsey said her baby "would probably not be here today."

She added that Caleb would not have been able to survive with a bone marrow failure and that he would have received end-of-life care if all other options had failed.

Fortunately, the operation was successful, but Kelsey and Lee had to wait two weeks impatiently to find out if Caleb's body had fully accepted her sister's bone marrow donation.

During this period, Caleb was under constant surveillance in an isolation unit where he could see only his mother and his doctors.

To keep the area sterile, Kelsey would have to change shoes and swap her outer garments for indoor clothes to reduce the risk of transmitting germs from the outside to the inside.

Much to Kelsey's relief, Caleb got the go-ahead and the doctors described the transfusion and a "clbadic" procedure.

Kelsey said, "They were very happy with the way things went, and that two-week wait was really difficult, we became obsessed with numbers.

"I doubted every second of every day, we just wanted to know if it worked or not.

"He is recovering well and it depends on the numbers, we can not leave the hospital until his blood is stabilized."

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"He will have to be watched very closely throughout his life and will be hospitalized for check-ups for next year."

Caleb and Kelsey are still in the hospital and are waiting to stay there again for eight weeks.

Caleb has not yet set foot in the family home and is still under constant surveillance at the hospital.

Meanwhile, his mother and sister live at the nearby Ronald McDonald House, which offers free "home-away-from-home" accommodation.

Sophia also chose to stay with her brother and attend the school's hospital while he is recovering completely.

She recovered from her 50-minute procedure within 24 hours, but she was kept away from her brother during her recovery.

Kelsey says it was "hell" to have two poor children and that it was difficult for her to subject Sophia to her operation in order to rescue Caleb.

She said, "It was such a difficult thing to do as a mother. I spent all day worrying for both of them.

"I did not know what to do with myself and I ended up waiting for the recovery station to come out of Sophia."

The family hopes to be reunited at home within two months and Kelsey says she dreams of booking a great family vacation to celebrate Caleb's miraculous journey.

Kelsey said, "They love each other, Sophia is amazing with him and they are the best friends in the world.

"They are closer than ever, Sophia knows she's done an amazing thing."