Cedar Rapids toddler battling cancer leaves UIHC after 183 days

CEDAR RAPIDS - For the past 183 days, beaded necklaces have hung in two-year-old Maeve Anderson's room at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Each one represents a different treatment she's received for a rare form of leukemia.

On Tuesday afternoon, however, the strands were carefully removed by Maeve's  mother, Meghan McClaskey, and packed away. Maeve defied the odds against her and was finally discharged from the hospital.

"I really don't know how we've made it through all of this," McClaskey said. "You just have to adapt - there is no other choice."

Maeve was deemed healthy at birth. It wasn't until the baby turned 14-months-old that her parents began to notice unusual bruising all over her body.

"I just thought it was because of her falling down," McClaskey said.

Physicians ordered several lab procedures in an attempt to discover the cause of Maeve's bruises. It was later revealed that the little girl's blood was abnormal. Soon after, Maeve was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

Further tests revealed that Maeve had a rare form of the disease called Mixed Lineage Leukemia, caused by an abnormality to the eleventh chromosome. Her prognosis was grim.

"Treatment with mixed lineage leukemia is around 30 percent," Maeve's primary physician Rolla Abu-Arja, M.D., said.

Maeve first began intensive chemotherapy on Sept. 26, 2010. Initially, her body was extremely resistant to treatment and it took several cycles over the course of five months for the disease to become manageable.

McClaskey and Maeve's father, Tom Anderson, rotated spending days at the hospital so that one of them could always be at her side, while also continuing to care for their four-year-old son, Bayne.

"It was crushing, watching her go through treatment," McClaskey said.

After being diagnosed cancer free and returning home for a brief period of time, Maeve returned to the UIHC on Feb. 14, 2011, and was able to receive her much-needed bone marrow transplant on Feb. 22.

But 27 days later, relief turned into more worry. Maeve was diagnosed with Graft-Versus-Host disease, which occurs when donated blood marrow labels the recipient's body as foreign and begins to attack it.

"It was horrible to watch her in pain like that," McClaskey said.

For the next four months, Maeve remained in intensive care at the UIHC as the disease ate away at her skin, causing third-degree burns all over her body, damaged her liver and ultimately caused the removal of her colon.

"Her skin was just falling off. It was horrible," Anderson said.

Despite all odds, Maeve managed to pull through it all - her liver repaired itself and her general health began to improve as her gastrointestinal tract began to heal post-surgery.

"She's turning into a typical two-year-old now," McClaskey said. "She was in bed and in pain for four months, but now she's gotten so much strength back."

Although Maeve has a long way to go in her recovery and will have to receive at-home care for twelve hours each day and return to the UIHC twice a week for check-ups, Maeve's parents are optimistic that she will continue to recover and thrive.

"We call her 'amaeving' because she's a little hero," McClaskey said. "She wasn't supposed to make it plenty of times."

Additional Information:

• A benefit will be held for Maeve Anderson from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Penguin's Comedy Club on Sept. 10. Tickets are $15, with $10 of each purchase going directly to the family to help pay for medical bills.

• A Facebook group has also been established for Maeve.

• Donations for the Maeve Anderson Fund can also be mailed directly to Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust:

CRBT

The Maeve Anderson Fund

5400 Council St. NE

Cedar Rapids, IA 52402