Medical and Extra Expenses for Brody Seter

In September of 2018, Brody’s parents started noticing some bruising on his arms and neck during his 7th grade football season.  His coach was concerned and after he injured his knee, they brought him to the clinic to get it looked at.  After finding nothing with his knee, Charla mentioned the bruising and they did a blood draw.  The results showed that his platelets were at 13, when the normal range is 150-500. They immediately drove to the new Sanford Hospital in Fargo.  After many tests, Brody was diagnosed with aplastic anemia which is bone marrow failure.  His bone marrow was not producing enough new cells to replace the old ones.

​As Emma (his only sibling)was not a match for a bone marrow transplant, Brody went through immunosuppressive therapy on December 5, 2018.  His counts come up some with the help of numerous medications, but as they weaned him by the end of 2019, he wasn’t able to maintain normal counts.  Early 2020, his doctor decided to go ahead with the bone marrow transplant as they had found some very good matches through the registry, Be the Match.

​On July 17, 2020 Brody received his life saving transplant at St. Mary’s Hospital which is part of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  His donor is from Germany and he will be a patient in the pediatric intensive care unit for 4-6 weeks.  Non-related donor cells take a little longer to engraft than a related donor.  Once his counts are good on his own, he will be discharged and be an outpatient at the Mayo Clinic for approximately another 8 weeks.  Charla and Brody will need to stay in Rochester during this time as he will have numerous appointments each week.