Deryn Blackwwell given days to live, makes remarkable recovery

Deryn Blackwell, 14, is feeling a little lost.

He had been preparing to die. Now he has to prepare for the future.

Blackwell is the only person in the world to have been diagnosed with both leukemia and Langerhans cell sarcoma at the same time.

He was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 10 in 2010. Eighteen months later, he was diagnosed with the extremely rare second cancer.

And while he went into remission for leukemia in 2010 and was considered cancer-free about 18 months ago after surgery, he still wasn't in the clear.

His only hope to prevent the cancers from returning: a bone-marrow transplant.

Two months ago, after his fourth failed transplant — and three major infections that stripped the boy of his immune system — doctors told the Norfolk, U.K. teen that he had just days to live.

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Blackwell moved into an end-of-life hospice. He planned his funeral. His family agreed to take him off the antibiotics that were keeping him alive.

"Deryn had certainly accepted his death. It wasn’t that he’d given up but he’d got to the point that he was ready to embrace it," his mother, Callie, tells the Daily Mail, adding that he had been so ill "that he was looking forward to dying."

And then his body started to produce white blood cells, baffling doctors. His organs weren't shutting down as they predicted. A "catastrophic infection" in his fingers cleared up on its own.

"It was a miracle," says Callie. "The doctors couldn't comprehend how he had managed to totally fight off the vicious infection in his fingers without any bone marrow, without an immune system and without drugs."

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The last bone-marrow transplant had worked after all, grafting around 78 days after surgery — a success the medical community couldn't explain. The doctors working with Deryn said they'd never seen anyone graft after 50 days.

According to Blackwell's website, "Not one Dr can explain how Deryn fought off THREE catastrophic infections with NO immune system and then went on to engraft with what tests said was empty bone marrow!"

"There will be no more drugs, no more blood transfusions and certainly no more chemotherapy. For now, at least, we don't need to worry," his mother says.

Deryn went from expecting death any day to being told he could make a full recovery.

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"Deryn has been left with NO lasting effects of anything. He's obviously struggling with his weight but that is improving but there are no issues with his internal organs, no ongoing meds for liver problems or heart defects," Callie writes on Facebook. "He has literally walked out of hell with a smile on his face!"

"The problem is now his future is a little uncertain again and that's something he didn't like before — the unpredictability of it," Callie admits.

The Blackwells are creating a foundation, Do Everything, that will run a retreat for teenagers diagnosed with cancer. Originally the charity was to be Deryn's legacy. Now it will be his purpose in life.

"A few weeks ago he was thinking merely in hours, and now he is thinking in days and years, about having a career, running the charity and moving abroad," Callie says. "For the first time in four years, he can picture his own future."