Pittsburgh mom hoping to find match for her son to have life-saving bone marrow transplant

By Mike Clark

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    ZELIENOPLE, Pennsylvania (WTAE) — A Pittsburgh mom is spreading the word about finding a match for her son so that he can have a life-saving bone marrow transplant.

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Missy and Pete Ramirez received the news a few weeks ago that their 6-year-old son Jackson, ‘Jax’, has a rare autoimmune disease affecting just one in 1.6 million people.

Now, the race is on to find a match for Jax.

“We’re going to fight this and I’m going to be his armor and we’re going to do it,” Missy Ramirez said.

Missy said her son has been hospitalized five times, landing him in the PICU at Children’s Hospital.

“You know I look at him sleeping and I just wanna forever be able to sneak in his room and see him sleeping in our home with us. That’s all I want,” Missy said.

The Ramirez family has kept Jax in a protective bubble.

“Since 2017 we have been in our own quarantine and so I always think that March 13, 2020, the world then felt like what we have been feeling like,” Missy said.

Behind his face mask, Jax shared his future plans.

“I wanna be on YouTube,” Jax said.

Jax said he likes to see his cyberlearning classmates, the swings at the park, playing Mario Cart at home and hanging out with his little brother Lincoln.

He does all of this while checking his diabetic numbers, receiving IVIG treatments, acupuncture, chiropractic care and oral medicines.

“There’s one that dad crushes up and into a pill and I just take it every day with chocolate milk,” Jax said.

It’s a team effort to keep Jax healthy.

“I’m happy that he’s so resilient and so happy. I’m happy we can keep him happy,” Missy said.

Now, he is waiting for a lifesaving bone marrow transplant.

“In essence, it’s like this devil that’s waiting to arise out of his body and we don’t know when that’s gonna happen so we have to do this sooner than later but it’s a really hard thing to swallow,” Missy said.

The family hopes and prays that someone out there will be the perfect match for Jax.

Missy said if you want to be a hero, join Be The Match by texting “JAX” to 61474. You can also visit BeTheMatch.org.

The test is a simple swab inside your check that you can do from home. They send you the kit and pay for the postage to send your sample back.

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