'Miracle' 9-Year-Old Boy Once Diagnosed with Leukemia — and Given 3 Days to Live — Now Dances for a Cause (Exclusive)
Aiden Adedipe was diagnosed with acute leukemia as a toddler and doctors did not think he would survive — now he dances to raise money for cancer research
Adeola Adedipe
Aiden Adedipe was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 2 years old.When Aiden Adedipe was 2 years old, his mom Adeola noticed that something was wrong with her son's health.
For six months, she tells PEOPLE exclusively, he was in and out of the hospital with ear infections, colds, bloody noses and respiratory issues. Every time he went to the doctor, he was sent home with another round of antibiotics to help him get better. But he never did.
Then, on Oct. 15, 2016, things took a turn for the worse.
"He'd been really sick and all the common Tylenol and home remedies were just not working," explains Adeola, who lives in Sacramento, Calif. "His whole body was covered with dalmatian bruises, and his head was swollen as big as a basketball."
"We took him to his primary doctor, someone who has been with him since he was born. Typically she's pretty chatty, but this time she was very conservative. So we knew something was going on," she continues.
Following that visit, Aiden was sent to the emergency room. There, blood work was done and he was diagnosed with a blood cancer known as T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). Adeola says his white blood cell count at the time was over 798,000. According to Mount Sinai, the normal white blood cell count is 4,500 to 11,000.
Adeola Adedipe
For 6 months, Aiden Adedipe was in and out of the hospital as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong.Andy Kolb, a pediatric hematologist oncologist as well as the president and chief executive officer of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, says that T-ALL progresses rapidly without treatment and the cause is unknown.
Because Aiden's white blood cell count was so high, his mom says, he didn't qualify for clinical trials. So he was rushed to the ICU, where he started chemotherapy — and was given just three days to live.
Within a week of his diagnosis, he underwent a blood transfusion. Over the next few years, he endured many surgeries and harsh medicines. But there was one thing he did throughout his journey: dance.
Adeola Adedipe
Aiden Adedipe'Aiden was always jamming out'
Throughout Aiden's battle with leukemia, he was always in costume and dancing, Adeola says. He would walk into stores with a costume, which seemingly gave him this "supernatural power."
"He went from playing the drums in the hospital to playing the guitar in the hospital to playing the piano in the hospital," she says. "No matter what it was, he was just really good at."
Since Aiden was so young at the time of his diagnosis, he doesn't remember much about his battle with leukemia. But his mom says he does remember the hours he spent in the music room provided by Sophie's Place – dedicated music therapy rooms built in children’s hospitals.
"Aiden was always jamming out," even during chemotherapy, his mom says. "For me, it was just a different perspective because he had so much joy."
"He's just dancing and he's singing and he has no realization that this is not really even a normal life because he was 2 when he started chemo until the age of 4 or 5 when he finished his last dose," she adds.
But through it all, says her son never stopped dancing. "It gave people hope."
Adeola Adedipe
Aiden Adedipe was 2 when he started chemo. He was 4 and a half, 5, when he finished his last dose.'Our purpose was more than just his diagnosis'
In the middle of of Aiden's journey, Adeola brought him to a friend's wedding. While they were there she says, he spent the whole time on the dance floor. That's when a dance instructor named Pepper Von noticed Aiden for the first time,
"We told him who Aiden was, and how he was going through chemotherapy, and Pepper was blown away," his mom says. "He told us that he wanted to be a part of Aiden's journey. So they started fundraising and dancing and just connecting over their love of dance."
Since then, she says, Aiden and Von have collaborated on fundraisers to raise awareness of childhood cancer, and recently choreographed a dance for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light the Night event.
This year Aiden was nominated for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's 2023 Visionary of the Year for raising $16,000 through dance fundraisers.
"It was so empowering to see all of the survivors, the supporters and their loved ones who passed away," she says. "He did this whole interpretation with his dance from him starting on the ground, not being able to get up, representing the cancer struggle and going through treatment. Then Pepper came and started lifting him up and that represented the nurses and the community."
"That really showed him overcoming difficulty — and it was to the song by Destiny's Child, "I'm a Survivor," she adds.
On Instagram Adeola shares clips of Aiden — whose favorite genre of dance is hip hop — dancing with his teacher. In one post Aiden and Von are in a dance studio looking at each other with their arms crossed. The next few slides in the Instagram post show the two continuing to dance with each other.
"With us advocating, we realized that there was a huge deficit in childhood cancer awareness, bone marrow registration, blood donations, and especially in our Black and Brown community," Adelola says. "So we started just advocating for those things and a lot of people started showing up."
"We had the odds against us and he started dancing and singing and he really started giving people hope. People started reaching out to us and telling us how much they were inspired by him," she continues.
She adds: "We knew that our purpose was way more than just this diagnosis and it really empowered us."
Now at 9 years old, in remission and having defied the odds, Aiden continues to use his love of dance to raise money for childhood cancer awareness.
"What they didn't factor in was his resilience," his mom says. "Aiden went from three days to live to the miracle baby on the third floor to the leukemia survivor, and now the leukemia advocate."
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