Holy Cross volleyball player Amanda Mack dead at 20 after being diagnosed with rare disorder
Holy Cross women’s volleyball player junior Amanda Mack died Wednesday night at the age of 20, according to message posted to her Instagram account.Mack announced in July on Instagram that she had been diagnosed with severe aplastic anemia, a rare condition in which bone marrow does not make enough new blood cells, and had undergone two emergency surgeries “to save my life” due to complicationsDoctors lined up a bone marrow transplant and Mack had been admitted to Tampa General on Aug.11, and she posted a positive message three days later to her Instagram account.“Finished my Immunosuppressive Therapy yesterday and came through it with minimal adverse reactions! So thankful for my Nurses & Doctors here at Tampa General,” she wrote alongside a photo of her flashing a thumbs up while laying in a hospital.
“They are a huge Blessing! Now we wait for my body to fix my immune system and regenerate my bone marrow.I should be able to go home by the end of next week and get to start Physical Therapy and the rest of my healing journey! Thank you to everyone for checking on me and for all the well wishes! You all have made this whole thing a little easier .”Mack, who spent her freshman season with Cincinnati before playing for Eastern Kentucky for one campaign and then transferring to the Patriot League school, noted in her July post that several weeks prior she woke up “not feeling good” and suffering from a bad headache.She passed out and landed in the hospital in what she described as “critical condition.”“Somehow my body had depleted my blood supply and ability to clot,” she wrote.
“I was admitted to the hospital and loaded full of blood and platelet transfusions.”Doctors worried that she could have Leukemia, but two bone marrow biopsies revealed she had aplastic anemia.Aplastic anemia “is a condition that happens when your bone marrow stops making enough new blood cells.The condition leaves you tired and more prone to infections and...