“Margo Mayhem” and the blood behind it

When the doctors told Margo Maher she had aplastic anemia, she recalls just being glad it wasn’t leukemia. The group of close friends she made from the music scene in Minneapolis came together to host a show to raise money for her. 

Aplastic anemia is a rare condition when your body stops producing new blood cells, leaving you fatigued and prone to infection and uncontrolled bleeding, according to Mayo Clinic.  

It was something unheard of to Margo, something rare, but something beatable. She’d have to work hard for the foreseeable future, but that’s nothing she hasn’t done before–long nights at the small town theater her mom owns and runs, barista jobs, a line cook at Murray’s, all the while finishing her degree and going to all the shows she can to see the bands she loves. 

“When I first met Margo, the first thing I thought was she could beat me up.” The words echoed throughout the Cedar Cultural Center’s venue space to a sold out audience on Sept. 9, coming from Grant Whiteoak, lead singer and guitarist for Minneapolis band, Heart to Gold. 

A night of laughs, cries, cigs and beer, and the same pre-pandemic fuzz-fueled moshing that filled basements all over Minneapolis years prior broke out that night as a “fuck you” to the unstoppable forces that govern all of us. It was aptly named Margo Mayhem, a benefit concert where ticket, merch and raffle proceeds all went to Margo.

“You can just see in certain people’s eyes that they’re tough, it’s something familiar but not something you see all the time,” Grant said. “This person would defend anything important to them. This person could beat me up.”

The first signs of her illness showed towards the end of April, in Greece, where Margo had spent the semester studying abroad. She started having a harder time doing basic physical tasks. She got winded easily and felt faint all the time, but she figured it was the daily 20 mile average of foot traveling around Europe. After she returned home, it got more intense. Walking up one flight of stairs, she’d feel like she was going to pass out. 

Then she got COVID-19. After being sick for three weeks, Margo and her friends knew something was wrong. Her color completely went away and her lips were purple. 

“Every night I was like ‘I genuinely feel like I could die in my sleep tonight,’” Margo said. 

On June 10, Margo went into the Health Partners clinic in Hudson Wisconsin to get IV fluid, thinking she was dehydrated. 

“I had them run blood tests, which they almost didn’t do,” Margo said. “I really had to convince them and get a physician to tell them to give me a blood test because they weren’t going to.” 

After each test result, the doctors’ worry grew more apparent. Margo was taken to the Emergency Room immediately after the third blood test. Her hemoglobin level was at 2.8 g/dL, below fatal. 

Morgan Smith had an idea of what was happening to her best friend immediately. It happened to her stepfather Caleb ten years ago–leukemia–and ultimately took his life. 

“He went into the exact same hospital and they said the exact same thing,” Morgan said, “They rushed Margo from Hudson to Regions in St. Paul and gave her blood, and that’s exactly what they did with Caleb too.”

“I was at a party with all our friends, and I was freaking the fuck out. I was like ‘you guys have no idea how serious this is.’”

“They definitely suggested that it might be leukemia,” Margo said. “That really scared me, so when they said aplastic anemia, I was like ‘Oh we’re good! It’s no problem! This is super chill.’ Little did I know it’s basically the exact same treatment process as leukemia, you just have a lesser chance of it returning once you get the bone marrow transplant.”

“I asked, what does treatment look like for me? To which the doctor said “Yeah, so, usually you start off with chemo.”

“Chemo?”  

“Chemo?!”

“Everyone gets shocked when they hear the word chemo, it’s a gross word and no one likes it. Then they sent me home and said ‘we’ll keep in touch.’”

During the days following the initial blood tests Margo received six units of blood. On June 15th, doctors did a bone marrow biopsy, where they put a needle in your bone and take out some of your bone marrow. 

“I remember [Caleb] saying how painful it was,” Morgan said. “My mom could literally hear him screaming in the next room over, so I was just so worried for Margo.”

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Margo said. 

Going to high school in a small town across the border in Wisconsin, Margo would drive into the cities with her friends to see local shows in house venues. Rental home basements would pack full of anyone from any scene and any era to experience the warm encumbrance of amplified sound. The house venues Margo was frequenting hosted some of the same bands playing her benefit show three years later. 

“Margo went to like every house show, even if there were two in a night she would go to both of them, I remember her sleeping in her car Saturday nights just to go to another house show the next day.” 

A drawing of a red-streak-haired Margo sticking her tongue out was plastered in the center of a poster drawn up by Minneapolis artist Ash Brama. It advertised the show with headlining bands Why Not, Heart to Gold, Marmalade and Mike Kota. When people saw the poster circulating online, they prepared themselves for one of the wildest local shows of the year. Friend and member of the Minneapolis band Sapphire, Ava Levy, was the lead behind the planning of the event.

“She’s really unbelievable,” Levy said. “She’s an amazing artist, which I don’t think she really shows off enough, I wish she would more. She’s a genius, and she’s dealt with a lot of shit in her life, but I feel like it’s made her such an amazing person because she’s so resilient and she’s a really good friend.” Levy asked some of her close friends in bands if they’d be willing to play for free and they were all really into it. 

From June to September, Margo would go in to get at least sixty blood transfusions and around one hundred platelet transfusions. After being discharged from the hospital the first time, Margo made it very clear to her friends she didn’t want to face this reality yet. She just wanted to spend some time with her friends enjoying what she could get from summer. There was a good month with a sense of normality. But the threat of unknowing seemed to loom in the minds of all her peers. 

The date of the bone marrow transplant kept getting delayed. Originally it was supposed to be early to mid August, but she kept getting severe stomach infections because her white blood cell count was so low, the gut microbiota started to take over. This happened four times, and each time it did she spent a week in the hospital. Her brother Michael recalls how spaced out and “not there” she seemed when driving her to a chiropractic appointment during this time. 

Finally, she was put on an at-home IV antibiotic. Which allowed her enough of a window with no infection to be admitted to M Health Fairview in Minneapolis on Sept. 23 to start the prep for chemo and get the bone marrow transplant on Sept. 29. Michael was the donor.

“When I found out I was the 100% match it was a surreal experience, it felt very much ‘meant to be,” Michael said. “I was put on this earth to do it. I can't describe it perfectly but it really does feel like I've been living my life to get to this moment of giving this gift to my sister. In life you kind of go around going through the motions, doing what you think is good and what you think you should do, but this really felt like something I did that was good. Getting the opportunity to go through this donation was as much a gift to me as it was to my sister.”

Margo’s friends realized they wanted to do something to help. They’d always known her as very independent, that if she was struggling, she wouldn’t let it affect anyone she loved. The five of them had been meeting with each other discussing what they were going to do for caretaking and fundraising. Lee Hannon, Margo’s current roommate and caretaker, started a bake sale and clothing sale that raised around $3700. 

“It took a huge weight off my shoulders,” Margo said. “That was definitely the biggest fear I had, running my mom dry of her money, needing to go on all the government funding programs that I can to get groceries and pay rent. It was just really stressful. I was signing up for social security and all this stuff and I was like ‘I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to deal with this!’” 

The government programs Margo was signing up for wanted her to do monthly classes on employment and “what it takes to be an employee.”

“I’m not just choosing not to work, like I can’t work,” she said. 

Eventually Morgan convinced Margo to let her start a GoFundMe. An outcome that took Morgan three hospital visits and earnest persuasion.

“That’s 100% Margo’s personality,” Morgan said. “She hates asking people for help and admitting that she needs help. She’s just very independent and strong-minded.”

“I wanted something for me to do, and I wanted to be the one to write it because I’ve known her since sixth grade,” Morgan said. “I sat in Dogwood for five hours just writing and revising and rewriting, calling everyone being like ‘am I sounding so stupid right now?’ just because I didn’t know what I was writing.”

“It took me swallowing my pride for sure because I’m not the type of person who likes to borrow money from anyone,” Margo said, “but once we posted the GoFundMe, nothing couldn’t have possibly prepared me for how quickly people reacted, how fast they all reached out to me, and how many people donated, of course.”

Margo’s GoFundMe raised $27,000 of the projected $30,000 goal. 

“It’s insane, I never could’ve possibly imagined that. It was an amazing gift, realizing how many people support me and can think about me even for a second to donate 5 or 10 dollars. Some people made insane donations that I hardly even know! Like I know you’re almost as broke as me, why are you doing this?! But it just really showed how much care is out there and what asking for help can do.”

Margo wasn’t even aware the show was happening until a week beforehand. “I was just in shock that all my friends’ bands were down to play not for profit,” she said. Heart To Gold even made merch tees with the drawing of Margo’s face on the front. The show raised nearly $7,000.

There wasn’t enough of a window where Margo would’ve been healthy enough to start the transplant and have her eggs frozen before going in. Most patients that undergo bone marrow transplants become infertile. At just 21, she’s unsure if she’ll be able to have children. Aplastic anemia took months from Margo’s life, it took her physical health and body autonomy, but her friends cleared her a path to a timely recovery.

The next months Margo will spend at home working to get back to where she was physically. Her new rituals include taking a handful of massive pills every day and cleaning her IV. In a bright little apartment filled with plants, a Tiffany lamp, thrifted furniture and a bookshelf stocked with punk memoirs, she’s still able to keep busy with her cat Juniper and all her friends, and despite being advised not to, she’ll still continue going to shows.