Meet Elsie

Bio:

When Elsie started kindergarten in 2015, her mom noticed that she always needed a nap when she got home from school. This alone was not alarming, but when coupled with strange rashes and a frequent sore throat, her parents sought the opinion of their pediatrician. Initial tests were inconclusive, and they attributed her illnesses and fatigue to being in school and exposed to new germs. Later that fall, Elsie received her routine flu mist vaccination, which caused a severe reaction and landed her in the emergency department (ED) of another local hospital. It was there that she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rapidly progressing rare blood cancer.

The next steps happened quickly and Elsie’s first transplant took place in early 2016 at another hospital. When she relapsed one year later, Elsie’s family continued to look for answers and they were directed to Siteman Kids at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and the groundbreaking work being done by WashU pediatric oncologist Jeff Bednarski, MD, PhD. Elsie was the perfect candidate for a clinical trial using Natural Killer (NK) cells. Unlike traditional chemotherapy, the immunotherapy treatment targets only cancer cells, not healthy ones. Elsie had a good response to the NK cell immunotherapy and her leukemia went into remission, which allowed her to proceed with a second stem cell transplant in 2020. Then the unthinkable happened in 2021 and she relapsed again. Elsie and her family started to lose hope and were seeking options outside of St. Louis. After enduring her third transplant at a hospital in Memphis and spending three months there where her health rapidly declined, she required helicopter transport back to St. Louis just in time. Elsie’s family credits Siteman Kids at St. Louis Children’s for bringing her back to life and understanding the complexity of her case. Elsie has now been battling AML for nine years and is now dealing with numerous side effects from her years of fighting. She is on daily dialysis after her kidneys failed due to the harsh treatments and hopes to receive a kidney transplant in the near future.

Because of You:

Elsie has now entered high school and she loves swimming, crafts and making frequent trips to either the library or a local bookstore. She is enjoying being a typical teenager and is only mildly obsessed with Taylor Swift. Elsie is getting stronger every day after her third, and hopefully final, transplant. Elsie's journey with St. Louis Children's Hospital not only involves the success of clinical research, but she and her family credit donor-funded programs like Child Life Services and the Center for Families for the help they have provided to Elsie and her family as they coped with the anxiety of the unknown during her weeks and months spent in the hospital.

Watch Elsie's Story: