Two-year-old Gracelyn “Gracey” Green from Atlantis has sadly lost her battle with cancer and passed away at the weekend.
The little girl crept into the hearts of South Africans when a nationwide drive was under way to get her a stem cell transplant.
“I was sitting with her in my arms when she passed at 7.54am,” said Gracey’s aunt, Lizel Solomons.
Gracey was at hospital at the time of her death on Saturday, reports IOL.
Little Gracey was diagnosed in August 2021 with juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia (JMML), a rare cancer of the blood that affects young children, and her only chance of survival was a stem cell transplant.
At the time, the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) said the chances of finding a match were one in 100 000, and the odds were even greater for Gracey (around one in 400 000) due to the lack of donors of colour on the registry, as patients are more likely to find a match within their own ethnic grouping.
The community rallied around the family, who has faced many trials.
On June 4, 2021, Gracey’s mother, Shanique, 20, and three other relatives died when their family home was gutted by a fire.
The brave mom managed to hand then five-month-old Gracey to someone through the window as she went back into the home to try to save a relative.
After months of searching for a bone marrow donor, in July 2022, it was confirmed Gracey found a match in the USA.
But the transplant was not a success as the child developed fungal infections in her heart and lungs, which spread to her bone marrow, making it difficult for the transplanted cells to grow.