Local boutique owner and cancer survivor opens second location

CALDWELL - Sierra Maxwell is the successful owner of Bella Blue Botique in Nampa. She's celebrating the grand opening of a second location in Caldwell.  

"Trying to slow down and smell the roses. That's what I need to do. I'm kind of an overachiever," said Sierra Maxwell, owner, Bella Blue Boutique.

Maxwell was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and needed to find a bone marrow donor. 

"It needed to be very fast. I wasn't well. I couldn't have survived without it," said Maxwell. 

She was put on the national bone marrow registry, "Be The Match, while Maxwell's daughter stepped in to help out. 

"It was such a big moment in our lives that she was so sick and I had to take over the store," said Tacarra Ozuna, Maxwell's daughter.

While it seems like a family member would be a good fit for a donor, it wasn't that simple.

"I had a rare amount of antigens I think they called it where I would have fought my sibling. Like I would have rejected them as donors. My relatives, my children."

A donor was finally found for Maxwell in Portugal and she received a successful bone marrow transplant in Salt Lake City.

"I'm on the mend for sure. I have some of the side affects of the chemo. It was hard and it's damaged a lot of my organs and stuff, but I'm better every day and one foot in front of the other and try to do the things I used to do to be the person I was," said Maxwell.

Since the transplant, Maxwell says she's been cancer free. 

"I was pregnant at the time. I needed my mom. She came back. She's healthy, she's stronger than ever. She's spunky and I mean she's just a little rocket in here. She's worked so hard to get this place up and going so quickly and here she is just living her dream really and I get to do it with her," said Ozuna.