8-Year-Old Fighting Rare Cancer Hosts Swab Drive to Find Donor

An eight-year-old boy from Fort Worth, Texas, was just diagnosed with a rare kind of cancer by medical professionals, and his family is managing the situation day by day. As they continue their hunt for a bone marrow match, they are now asking people from North Texas for assistance.

Sarah Morford and Zac Morford have a son and a daughter, and they have spent a significant portion of their elementary school years attending their children’s school activities, birthday parties, and soccer sporting events.

“George is a typical eight-year-old boy who loves nature, loves to go outside, enjoys his small group of friends, his soccer team, walking to school every day with his sister, and loves family nights at home,” Sarah Morford said when asked about their eight-year-old son.

While she and her husband are browsing through photo albums to reminisce about the early years of their children’s life, they can’t help but think about the amount of vitality that their son has always possessed. However, something changed not too long ago.

“Two months ago, I got a feeling in my gut that something was seriously wrong with George. It had been a couple of months since he had been feeling well, and I had observed that he had bruises all over his body,” Morford provided an explanation.

When the family went to the emergency department, they would shortly find out the reason why their son was not feeling as well as he normally would.

An hour later, they informed George’s mother that her son had been diagnosed with leukemia. “I was shocked,” she said. “He started chemotherapy the same day that he went into the emergency room at Cook Children’s, by that night, he was already receiving the treatments that he needed.”

He was given a diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia, also known as AML, which is a form of the disease that is extremely uncommon and severe.

From that point forward, he has been practically residing on the fifth floor of Cook Children’s Hospital. According to Morford, “He receives treatment on a daily basis, and after his treatments are finished, the hospital ensures that he is protected from all of the germs because he does not have an immune system.”

“There are times when it seems as though we have a child in the process of developing leukemia. There is hardly ever a day that passes in which we do not acquire new information regarding the disease, the treatments, or the symptoms. At the same time, however, we have realized that we have a large number of friends who are always there for us,” said Zac Morford, George’s father.

He informed them that they are grateful not only to George’s family and friends, but also to his classmates, who give him video updates on a weekly basis so that he can view them while he is in the hospital.

“His days are hard, our job is to try to make them a little easier,” said Sarah with tears.

For the time being, the couple is relying on strangers and neighbors from all over the place in an effort to assist their son. Fort Worth is playing host to a stem cell “Fort Worth Swab Drive” that is being organized by Earl Young’s Team, a charitable organization whose primary objective is to eradicate blood cancer by recruiting donors.

“70% of patients don’t have a match in their family and have to rely on strangers, and there aren’t enough people in the bank when you’re searching and those 70% of patients are looking to find someone,” Zac further added. “Matches are rare because you need a very close genetic match, and so, the more people that are there, the better the odds that we’ll find a match for George, and for all the other patients who are looking for donors for stem cells.”

“If you are healthy between 18 and 55 years old, you can spend five or six minutes of your day and you can potentially save a life, which I just know as a mother, I would do that for any other mother,” said Sarah in her statement.

On Saturday, May 3, from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon, the Fort Worth Swab Drive will take place. There will be a raffle of Kendra Scott products, as well as music and a taco truck.

On Saturday, May 3rd
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days.
The University Baptist Church can be found in Fort Worth at 2720 Wabash Avenue.
Donations can be made by individuals between the ages of 18 and 55 who are in excellent health.
The duration of the process is less than ten minutes.

“It’s been a really hard road, and we’re kind of riding the roller coaster and just helping him through day by day,” said Sarah in response.