Horse blood gives sick teenager new hope

Cara Heaney, 14, was told that she had the rare illness aplastic anemia in January. It has left her weak and confined to a wheelchair. Now antibodies drawn from animals’ blood are giving her a chance of survival as she fights bone-marrow failure.

Doctors are treating Cara, who lives in Killingworth, North Tyneside, with the animal blood products in the hope of kick-starting her immune system and curing her condition.

As well as receiving horse antibodies, known as immunoglobulins, in April and the rabbit blood products over the next few months, she must also undergo at least one blood transfusion every fortnight as well as blood platelet replacements once a week.

“Without this treatment Cara would not be alive today,” her mother, Miriam, 41, said. “We’ve been told that 60 per cent of people get better after receiving a second lot of animal immunoglobulins, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

“Cara gets very down but she never moans and seems to be more concerned about how her illness is affecting everyone else in the family. When she was first diagnosed she even planned her funeral but now she is more hopeful and realis-es that with the right treatment she could be fine.”

This week Cara’s strength in the face of adversity will be hon-oured as she is handed a Brave Hearts award. She has chosen a pink iPod Nano and a portable DVD player as her presents from Brave Hearts and she will receive them, with her award, tomorrow at St James’ Park football ground in Newcastle.

“I’m very excited about the award and very happy, although it was a big surprise when I found out,” said Cara, who lives with her mother, father, Alan, 47, and brothers, Aaron, 15, and Robert, 8.

“I’ve tried to be brave and at the beginning it took the doctors a while to find out what was wrong.”

The illness has had a drastic effect on Cara’s life, leaving her unable to go on holiday or even go swimming, as she needs a permanent tube going through her chest into an artery, delivering vital supplies of blood and medication.

She is now receiving tutoring at home as she has been too ill to join her friends at school. Her illness affects only one in every 200,000 people and in many cases the reasons behind the condition are not clear.

“We’ve lost count of the number of times Cara has been into hospital or needed a blood transfusion,” Mrs Heaney said. “At first, before she was diagnosed, Cara was fainting and had a rash and doctors thought it might be leukaemia.”

Aplastic anaemia occurs when the bone marrow stops making enough blood-forming stem cells. Patients with aplastic anaemia typically have low blood cell counts in all three blood lines – red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.

The symptoms can include increased bleeding, bruising, susceptibility to infections, shortness of breath, fatigue, decreased alertness, dizziness and lingering illness. Although aplastic anaemia can appear at any age, it is diagnosed more often in children and young adults.