Remembering Dristin Franklin
Gene: Unknown

Dristin Franklin was born July 13, 2001, he was a happy child and was very active. He enjoyed playing soccer, football, riding bicycles and dirt bikes. He loved children and was so sweet and respectful to all young and old. When he was young, we just thought he had low iron because he would bruise so easily, in 2015 Dristin started to get alarmingly sick and was diagnosed with Dyskeratosis Congenita (unknown of what gene). This is when everything started to change. We took him to appointments after appointments, he kept getting discouraging news however remained positive. The nurses loved him, he continued to fight. He had one failed bone marrow transplants (the woman who donated initially took her name off the list) and two failed stem cell transplants. He helped create a new guideline/ procedure on how they deal with stem cell transplants. Dristin had issue after issue and did not allow that to define him. Even when Dristin became tired of all he had to do (getting platelets every other day, dialysis three times a week, GVH affecting his skin) he kept going because we asked him to. He knew he was going to die and wanted to be home when he did. So in July of 2017 he got really sick with lung infections, blood infections the doctors told us that the next thing to do would put him on a ventilator and he wouldn’t be able to pass at home. We listened to Dristin and brought him home. The next morning on July 10, 2017 at 4:01am Dristin passed away in his bed surrounded by all his friends and family.