Casey was able to recover from his second bone marrow transplant and attend his first semester at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. He relapsed at the end of his first semester.

The doctors at UMC concluded that Casey's perfect matched bone marrow was not recognizing the leukemia cells.

The last transplant Casey received was cord blood from an unknown donor. It was a much harder transplant. He was forced to stay on immune suppressant drugs so he would not reject the new marrow. Casey was in complete remission with 100% cord blood marrow when he died from pneumonia December 18, 2006.  

Casey was always there to cheer the runners across the finish line and we will always be there to keep Casey's wish alive. 

TeamCasey Forever!

Casey Edward Axford was born September 26, 1985 and died December 18, 2006 at the age of 21. Casey was born in Brookfield, Wisconsin, moved to Plymouth, MN at age 3 and started kindergarten in Naperville, IL. He moved to Scottsdale, AZ before he started 5th grade. While attending Mountainside Middle School in 1999, Casey became sick and was diagnosis with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia or ALL. He was treated with chemothophy for 3 1/2 years.
He relapsed and received a Bone Marrow Transplant using bone marrow from his perfectly matched brother, Matt, in October 2002.

Casey was very proud to graduate high school on time with his friends. 

But Casey relapsed for the second time. Fortunately, Casey had two perfect matching brothers. He received Stem Cells from Jay in October 2004. It was during this transplant TeamCasey was born.