by Peggy Spencer
Daily Lobo columnist
Do you remember Kailee Wells? She was in the news a few years back. Kailee is a little Chinese girl who was adopted by an Albuquerque family. When she was 5 years old, she almost bled to death from a nosebleed. This is how her family discovered that she has aplastic anemia, a disease in which the bone marrow shuts down. Kailee became a local poster child for bone marrow donation, a procedure that could save her life.
Tomorrow, Valentine's Day, you will have an opportunity to save the life of someone like Kailee. All you need to do is say "ahh." ASUNM will be sponsoring a blood drive in the SUB Ballroom, and it has invited the National Marrow Donor Program to share its space and sign people up for the National Bone Marrow Registry. But first, you should know what marrow is, why we need it and what it means to become a donor.
Marrow is a spongy substance found inside your bones. Inside the sponge live what are essentially baby blood cells. They are also called hematopoietic - blood - stem cells. Blood stem cells grow up to become red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Once they're mature, they leave the spongy nest and venture into the wild world of circulating blood, where they do their grown-up jobs. Red blood cells carry oxygen. White blood cells fight infection. Platelets make blood clots so you don't bleed to death when you brush your teeth or get a paper cut.
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Just to clarify, in case the term stem cell sent your blood pressure up, these blood stem cells are not the same as the controversial embryonic stem cells. Stem cell is a general term for a cell that can differentiate into a more specialized type of cell. Blood stem cells can only become blood cells, are not used in controversial research and are taken from willing adult donors.
Most people have normally functioning marrow all their lives. But an unlucky few lose it. There are several ways this can happen. One is cancer treatment. Cancer cells divide rapidly. So do blood stem cells. Chemotherapy finds rapidly dividing cells and kills them. Hence, a patient may get cured of his or her cancer but have a whole new problem because his or her marrow was wiped out along with the cancer cells. For other people, immune deficiency diseases, like what Kailee has, can deplete the marrow.
So, let's say you decide you want to help one of these unlucky people who need blood stem cells. How do you go about it? Go to the SUB Ballroom on Wednesday between 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Find the National Marrow Donor Program. The program will accept almost anyone between 18 and 60 years old. You'll have to fill out a form and swab inside your cheek four times. That's it. That gets you on the Bone Marrow Registry, a list of about 6 million generous souls.
If you think that's a lot of people, it's not. Only about three in 100 donors end up actually donating, because the marrow of the donor has to match the marrow of the recipient. Matching means having the same proteins on the surfaces of the cells. These proteins are called human leukocyte antigens, and at least six of them need to match to make a transplant worth doing. It doesn't sound like much, but a good match can be extremely hard to find. Kailee's family searched for years and almost gave up before finally finding one compatible donor in China for her. The best matches are usually from someone of the same ethnicity.
Once you are on the list, you might get a call from the registry
some day, telling you you're a match for one of the 15,000 patients each year who need blood stem cells in North America, or perhaps for a patient overseas. If you're willing to take the next step, you'll go to the nearest donor center for an information session and some more blood tests. After that, if you're still a good match, and if you're still willing, you'll do the donation.
To donate, you'll give blood or marrow. Blood stem cells can be retrieved from your blood after their growth is stimulated with a drug for a few days. Marrow is taken from the hip bone, under general or regional anesthesia, and replenishes itself in a few weeks. You might have a backache for a few days after marrow donation. Meanwhile, you may well have saved a life - talk about a good deed for the day.
Kailee is doing well after the third marrow transplant from her rare and generous donor. Imagine, you could be that one in a million match for a person in need like Kailee. I hope you'll take time to stop by, say "ahh" and add your name to the list of heroes.
Peggy Spencer has been a UNM student health physician for 16 years. E-mail your questions to her directly at Pspencer@unm.edu. All questions will be considered, and all questioners will remain anonymous. This column has only
general health information and cannot replace a visit to a health provider.
