About AYA Unfiltered: The Jackson Copeland Foundation exists to help Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) leukemia patients navigate the overwhelming nature of this terrible disease. AYA Unfiltered is our commitment to telling the whole truth. In this series, we highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly side of leukemia as a young adult—sharing stories of triumph, stories of loss, and the messy reality in between. Today’s story is about young adult leukemia warrior Fred Bradley by Fred’s Battle with AML. Please Note: Today’s story discusses end-of-life care and grief.
March 1st 2022: Diagnosis
In the last couple weeks of February, 2022 Fred was freshly 21, and had cold/flu symptoms. A few good days, a few bad days, repeat. Then his jaw started to hurt like an abscess. We took him to urgent care expecting to come home with antibiotics, but one look at his labs and he couldn’t come home. He was transferred to another hospital, as we woke up to head to him they were telling him he had leukemia, and we headed to Atlanta instead.
His dad watched the first bone marrow biopsy, held his hand and sat by him through his first chemo as late as possible (COVID rules meant no overnights then). When Fred came home he was still Fred, even ending up on a walker and getting x-rays for trying to jump into the golf cart while fishing! He sailed through consolidation chemo with a little nausea and puffy face. He was in remission.
June 12th, 2022: Stem Cell Transplant – Happy Rebirthday!
Then came transplant #1. Every day at the hospital, IV chemo, and a few days of over 140 pills a day. He stayed outpatient until day +4, when he started vomiting blood cause he’d thrown up so much he tore something in his upper GI tract. He recovered, he fought like hell, and his donor saved his life. Surgeries, PICC lines, transfusions, never ending medication changes.
January 12th, 2023: Relapse
Fred relapsed six months later, just as he turned 22. That relapse was hell. Failed clinical trial, salvage chemo, bone marrow failure, they asked him if he wanted to go home or do a rare white blood cell transfusion. It was risky. He said do it. The next morning he was in ICU. Respiratory failure, liver complications, trichosporon asahii blood infection, heart problems, bleeding in his eyes from low platelets, days of 103 fevers laying on a cold water blanket, feeding tubes, TPN. They gave him every last stem cell saved from his donor. We sat on what we knew was a death bed, and this boy walked out of that hospital anyway after celebrating Easter in the ICU!
May 16th, 2023: Remission
His donor gave more stem cells, and he stayed on chemo for six months with three Donor Lymphocyte Infusions in between cycles. He suffered from graft vs host disease (GVHD) in the eyes, stomach, skin, and skeletal/muscular. He struggled with appetite, mood, and fatigue for two years. Then his back started to hurt in August.
August 21st, 2025 Central Nervous System (CNS) AML, low level bone marrow relapse
MRIs showed this wasn’t GVHD, and a spinal tap showed extremely high spinal pressure and 98% cancer cells in the fluid. The tap left him screaming in pain that night, so he had brain surgery to place an Ommaya reservoir. Weeks of IT chemo straight to his spinal fluid couldn’t control the cancer, so he did radiation and beat it.
Then his jaw got infected, UTIs, cdiff for the third time, and his blood pressure kept tanking. They almost had to crash cart him. He developed life threatening Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and we held his hand through daily shots and watched him get a chest tube to fight Necrotizing Pneumonia.
October 30th, 2025: Remission
Once again we had sat on Fred’s death bed, yet he walked out of that hospital after celebrating Christmas in ICU and getting ready for his 25th birthday upstairs with his BMT team who he loved!
April 22nd, 2026: Transplant #2 Happy Rebirthday!
Fred’s sister, Brigitte, became his new stem cell donor in April. He got his second stem cell transplant and he was weak but recovering, as our attention turned to focusing on Fred’s grandmother fighting her own cancer.
July 22nd, 2026: Relapse #3
After infusion one day, the three of us were visiting her when I saw it on Fred’s labs: Blast cells were back in under three months. His dad and I sat quietly and absorbed it, fighting denial.
Fred’s grandmother came home on hospice, and his bone marrow biopsy confirmed relapse. He didn’t want her to know; None of us did. So we kept it a secret. We did what we could to give him the party we promised his last months would be. He got to spend time at home with his grandma every day, ate what he wanted, had a drink when he felt good enough, got his nails done, watched F1 cars, laughed with friends and family, and met so many new cars and people.
Two weeks before he passed, when the fevers came back, he told his hospice nurse “I’ve done everything I wanted to do”. We weren’t ready, and I don’t know if we will ever really accept what happened, but watching him take control beat watching him in a hospital bed. He did what he couldn’t for 4 1/2 years: Live without so many rules. No 10 med alarms a day with every bite of food becoming a running list of “what’s he eating, how can we get him to eat more”. He just enjoyed living, and 20 days after telling his grandmother goodbye, he said goodbye too.
August 26th, 2026: Rest In Peace
In honor of Fred, please wear your AML shirts, and if you can, go donate blood or platelets. Go save a cancer patient’s life and send them home to their families another day like so many donors did for Fred. He got over 200 transfusions, mostly platelets. Enjoy your life. Take control, and live every day. We never know when our last good day is. Don’t waste it. If you meet someone with blood cancer, listen to their story. Help make their day if you can. Small things matter so much!
While every patient story matters, the stark truth is that outcomes for high-risk acute myeloid leukemia lag far behind other types of leukemia. At The Jackson Copeland Foundation, we are steadfast in our mission to fight for innovative treatments, aggressive leukemia research, and ultimately find a cure for AML—because every young adult facing this terrible disease deserves better odds!
Leave a Reply