Stem cell donor stands to save second life
| Wednesday, Jul 15 2009 06:47 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Jul 15 2009 06:47 PM
MARROW AND STEM CELL DONATIONS
-- A marrow or blood cell transplant is a potentially life-saving treatment for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases. A transplant replaces a patient's unhealthy blood cells with healthy blood-forming cells from a volunteer donor.
The three sources of blood-forming cells are marrow, blood-forming cells collected from the blood and umbilical cord blood.
-- Patients are matched with donors when blood samples from adult donors are tested, and the tissue type is added to the national registry. Doctors can search this registry when they need to find a donor whose tissue type matches their patient's.
-- Patients are most likely to match someone of their race and ethnicity. There is a need to recruit more donors who are black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific islander and Hispanic.
-- One year after a transplant, donor and recipient may contact each other, but only if both parties agree.
-- To become a donor, go to www.marrow.org or call the Heart of America donor registry at 800- 366-6711.
Source: National Marrow Donor Program
Terry Bowe is a lifesaver.
In 2005, he donated his blood stem cells to a critically ill patient whose name he didn't know and whose city and even country of residence remained a guarded secret.
All he was told by officials with the National Marrow Donor Program was the recipient was a 36-year-old woman with leukemia who was fighting for her life.
In 2006, after both donor and recipient agreed to meet, Bowe came face to face with Kimberly Richards, a wife and mother from Glendale, Ariz.
"He actually saved my life," Richards said after that first meeting.
Nearly four years after receiving Bowe's life-saving gift, Richards remains a survivor.
"Terry considered it a privilege to be given the opportunity to save someone else's life," Richards said Wednesday from her home in Arizona. "Where would I be if he hadn't?"
Now at age 54, Bowe has the rare chance to do it again. The Bakersfield husband and father has been matched with a 59-year-old man suffering from leukemia.
"I'm amazed that I get to do this again," said the Chevron employee. "After my first experience, I swore I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I am. No hesitation.
"The minor discomfort I experienced paled in comparison to the reward of helping somebody," he added.
The experience has changed him for the better, Bowe said. The small inconveniences of traffic jams or hassles at work no longer have the significance they once had.
This weekend, Bowe will be given a medication to make the harvesting of his stem cells possible. Then, next week, he will travel to San Francisco, where doctors will complete the process.
There's no guarantee the life of the 59-year-old man will be saved by Bowe's gift. But it's so worth the trouble just to try, he said.
Sarah Bowe, Terry Bowe's 19-year-old daughter, said her dad experienced some physical discomfort after the first procedure, so she was concerned about his decision to donate a second time.
But she came to realize that her father's generosity has enriched her entire family.
"Giving someone a second chance at life has brought our family closer," Sarah said in an e-mail.
"It took me a while to accept that it's my father's choice and a rare second chance" to help save a life, she added. "I now really see why we are all truly put on this earth -- to help and serve one another."
