By Anton Ghosh

Sophia Eckert’s first experience donating platelets with the American Red Cross in January 2025 was an emotional experience. Sophia looked around at the frequent donors who, according to the phlebotomist, came weekly to give platelets and she started to think about her two-year old son Roger. “That made me tear up,” Sophia said, “thinking Roger might have used their blood product to save his life.”

Roger’s story starts when he was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) at just four months old. As Sophia recounted, AML is one of the most aggressive forms of childhood leukemia, with only a 60% survival rate. Over the next few months, Roger underwent three rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, at the University of California San Francisco.  “It was a very intense chemotherapy and destroyed all his blood cells,” explained Sophia.

Soon after going through his first round of chemotherapy Roger developed a brain bleed, a rare and life threatening consequence from his aggressive chemotherapy. He spent a week in the pediatric intensive care unit, where he received a continuous infusion of platelets to control the brain bleed. Over several months, Roger slowly improved and, thankfully, he needed less and less treatment.

Today, Roger is back home with his mom and is in remission. “He is now 2 years old, in preschool, healthy, happy and thriving,” says Sophia. “His UCSF team was superb and saved his life.” She highlights the importance of blood and platelet donations to Roger’s treatment.  “Blood and platelets saved my son’s life,” Sophia says. His story is “proof that blood donations save lives.”

Sophia hopes Roger’s story, and his cute pictures, will inspire others to donate blood or platelets.“He [Roger] is super cute. He is the perfect baby! It will be hard for people to say no to donating!” she says.

For those nervous about donating blood for the first time, Sophia shares these words of encouragement: “If you donate, you might be saving a 4-month-old baby’s life. If they had not donated to my son, he would not have survived.”