Mia's MRI

Prayer request would be greatly appreciated if you are able to pray for Mia! It's that time of year...Mia's yearly T2* MRI of her heart & liver to see how much iron has deposited on her organs from all the blood transfusions. (The very thing that saves her life...ironically slowly damages your organs.) Did you know, heart failure due to myocardial iron overload remains the leading cause of death in patients with transfusion-dependent anemias? Thank goodness we have a medicine called Jadenu that Mia takes every day and it helps chelate or get rid of the extra iron that builds up in her organs to prevent iron overload. We always hope for the same or *lower numbers from her MRI scans and we won't find out for a few weeks. She’s going in without sedation today for the first time, and it’s a long MRI but in sections...you got this Mia!! Courage.

- Of course she did great...and prefers not to be put to sleep!

Mia's 168th Blood Transfusion

There's not much to say...with Mia being pre-medicated due

to her first reaction to a blood product last December, she

sleeps all through her infusions now.

Talk about a nice benedryl nap.

We haven't been doing desferal for the month of January 

to see how her new medication Jadenu is doing as her oral

chelator. So Mia's  upcoming MRI results will be really 

interesting. As always, thank you so much to blood donors

who give Mia the chance at LIFE.

Mia Speaks at Highland High School

Mia had the opportunity to speak to the students at 

Highland High School 

about how she survives because of blood donors.

The students are hosting a blood drive

in February and are trying to recruit as many blood donors as

they can. We hope Mia's story can help inspire

others to donate blood.

Way to go Mia!

Mia doing her thing...

These teachers are the BEST!

There class is a community service class - and one event

they do is host several blood drives.

Every school should have teachers as awesome

as they are.

Haha what a great class!

Thank you so much to these amazing people for giving back to the

community in such a way where it helps patients like Mia.

We don't know what we would do with you!!

Madison Fills in For Mia

Mia had been looking forward to speaking at the 

Isagenix #NYKO 2018 conference for weeks.

Unfortunately, Mia was overcome by the flu the day

before she was supposed to go on stage speaking.

We were mortified.

This had never happened before as we have been

fortunate enough to always make most of our events

illness free.

Madison, Mia's little sister, 11 years old, 

said that she would step in for her big sis.

Thank goodness for Madison because

I don't know why we would have done!

Sweet Madison woke up to the questions, 'Hey Madison...

I have the biggest favor...can you go on stage for Mia in

front of 5 thousand people??'

Sure!

Haha love you Madders.

Here she is in the green room before she went on stage.

Isagenx has raised $8.9 million for Make A Wish...

And has given away 938 wishes...AMAZING!

We are so sad that Mia couldn't be there, but the next best thing is 

Madders...who knew she could have a future in comedy??

MAKE SURE YOU WATCH THIS VIDEO!!

PRESS PLAY in the VIDEO above!!! 

Madison rocking the stage with a head microphone and everything!

What a great team of people who can get stuff done!

Stephie - Isagenix Make A Wish coordinator

Aubrie - Be The Match Rep for Southwest

Madison - Guest Speaker

Me - Mom-ager

Lisa- Make a Wish International

Here are our Numbers:

Be The Match - Cheek swabs 

-Corporate Office 44

NYKO

Day 1 - 12

Day 2 - 153 (Madison spoke)

Day 3 - 157

= 366 people added to the bone marrow registry

to potentially save a life!

Money Raised in a weekend for Make A Wish = $100,000.

Team Work is awesome, we are blessed.

United Blood Services - Blood Drive

Twice a year, UBS puts on a very large blood drive to raise

awareness of how important blood donations are in our state, 

as well as all over our country.

In the state of Arizona - we need 500 people to donate blood 

EVERY DAY

to keep our hospitals up to date with the blood that patients like

Mia NEED (REQUIRE) to stay alive.

We are so thankful to:

United Blood Services

For all their hard work in keeping not only Mia alive,

but everyone else who needs a blood product to stay alive.

MOST IMPORTANTLY...we thank the people

who take the time out of their day to simply donate blood.

It truly is no big deal to some people, but...

you literally save lives when you do it.

Thank you UBS and all the people that work there for what you do.

Honestly, we could never say thank you enough. <3

Be The Match @ Isagenix Headquarters

Mia had a fun time at the Isagneix Corporate Headquarters in Gilbert AZ

to register potential bone marrow donors to the Be The Match

registry to start the New Year off!

Mia helping explain how simple the cheek swab is

to be added to the registry to help save lives.

We were so happy to see so many smiling willing potential donors!

Mia just loves her Isagenix buddy Stephie - who is in charge

of special events like this and also a partner with 

Make a Wish - who we love dearly and have been blessed 

by a make a wish trip to Hawaii 5 years ago.