A Rockmart High School freshman who has a rare immune system disorder is recovering from a procedure completed in recent weeks in hopes of helping him get to be a normal teenager.

Gavin Statham went into the hospital in late January for a bone marrow transplant after months of chemotherapy to battle Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare disorder within the blood that is mostly fatal if not treated quickly, and usually requires a bone marrow transplant.

The procedure completed in late January – with the freshman class wearing t-shirts supporting Gavin on January 27 – is hoped to provide a cure for Gavin’s HLH. However, he’s going to be out of school until at least May to heal. Gavin is the son of Alecia Haney Statham and Kevin Statham.

According to an update from Dr. Katie Thomas, Gavin is recovering from the bone marrow transplant completed in recent days.

HLH is a severe disorder that can be fatal in some patients. It is specifically a severe systemic inflammatory syndrome that sometimes occurs in regular folks with medial problems can develop when the immune system has a strong reaction to an infection, or cancer.

That would be secondary HLH.

Primary HLH also happens when patients have a specific genetic defect which is a direct cause of the syndrome to develop. In both cases, blood tests to determine cell counts are used to find the disorder and provide treatment options – which range from steriods to chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants.

That’s so rare it happens statistically in one in every 50,000 children born worldwide annually.

Along with t-shirts worn by students during the day of Gavin’s procedure to show their support for their classmate, the school also honored him during their final home basketball game of the regular season in recent days.