FORT EUSTIS, Va. (August 7, 2009) -- Kendall Chavez is a 9-year-old girl who looks beautiful in her blue and white dress lying beside blue and yellow flowers. She has a smile on her face as she crosses her bare feet behind her. Looking at the photo alone, you would never take her as a cancer survivor. Reading the call to become a bone marrow donor below her photo on the promotional flyer, you learn the battle to a cure Kendall recently won.
The daughter of Michelle and Sgt. 1st Class Eugene Chavez, a battalion fire support noncommissioned officer in the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, Chavez became the poster child for the C.W. Bill Young Department of Defense Marrow Donor Program.
To support this program and family members like Chavez, Fort Eustis is hosting a bone marrow donor registration drive from now until Tuesday, but those interested can register anytime. To join the National Bone Marrow Donor Be The Match Registry, a swabbing of the inside of the cheek and some paperwork are all that is required.
The cotton swab with DNA from the saliva and cells inside the cheek with the registration form is shipped to the DoD Marrow Donor Program Donor Center. From there, the potential donor's information is confidentially entered into the registry. Doctors hope to match their patients' tissue type with potential donors on the registry for a successful bone marrow transplant. According to the DoD Bone Marrow Donor Program Web site, www.dodmarrow.com, bone marrow transplants are used to treat as many as 70 different potentially fatal diseases.
Unit representatives who have been supplied with these simple swab kits are looking for potential donors in the Fort Eustis community. The goal for the installation is to submit 1,250 kits to the donor center.
According to Albert Collins, Fort Eustis DoD Marrow Donor Program manager, this is the first drive Fort Eustis has held in more than 10 years.
"We need to educate Fort Eustis about the newer process to donate bone marrow," said Collins. "I know there are many people out there who would donate if they knew how easy the new registration and donation processes are."
For every 300 people that register, at least one is found to be a donor, according to Navy Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Campbell, an administrative officer with the White House Military Office who promotes the DoD Marrow Donor Program. Campbell first became involved with the program in 1993 after she lost a fellow shipmate to Leukemia who couldn't find a match for a needed bone marrow transplant.
Campbell said at any given time across the country, 30,000 people are in need of bone marrow transplants, with more than 500 DoD service members and family members on the list.
"It (the DoD Marrow Donor Program) is such an important thing because we have so many of our own people sick. The DoD has taken on the mission of signing people up because we take care of our own people," said Campbell. "We want to make sure that if our family members are sick that we are giving them a good shot ... to have a match as well."
Chavez was one of those DoD family members on the list. Diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia at age 7, she began chemotherapy immediately. After a year of treatment, though, she developed a resistance to the medication and a second form of cancer, Mixed-Lineage Leukemia.
The search for a bone marrow donor matching Chavez began in March 2008. The family, Dad, Mom, and brothers Jordan and Elias, were checked but not found to be matches. According to Campbell, there is only a one in four chance that parents will match their children.
Chavez's doctors then turned to the National Bone Marrow Donor Be The Match Registry. The family was told finding a match might prove difficult for Chavez because minorities, like the family who is Hispanic, are less prevalent on the donor list.
Until a match was found in June 2008, Chavez was given medication to keep her Leukemia in a chronic phase versus going into an acute phase. In the acute phase, it becomes more difficult for a recipient's body to successfully take a bone marrow transplant.
Donna Johnson, spouse of Maj. Gary Johnson, Fort Eustis deputy Staff Judge Advocate, is well aware of the complications caused in the acute phase. Johnson lost her sister, Dara Zimmerman, in 1993 to the same first type of Leukemia Chavez had. Zimmerman received a bone marrow transplant after she had entered the acute phase, but the transplant did not take. Zimmerman died at the age of 24 while waiting on the list for another transplant.
Johnson is now an advocate for the DoD Bone Marrow Donor Program. She said she believes it's sad that it takes the sickness or death of a family member or friend to bring people's attention to the issue.
"The odds of you even matching someone are so slim, so to me that just tells you we need that many more people in the registry to up the chances of someone (matching)," said Johnson. "...I just realized through my sister how critical that timeframe is that once you are diagnosed you need to know who your matches (are) so when it is the appropriate time (the doctors) are ready to do the bone marrow transplant and not (just) trying to keep you from getting any worse." Chavez received a successful bone marrow transplant in September 2008 at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and, today, she has completely recovered and is cancer free.
With today's technology, Chavez only suffered some minor pain in the legs during her infusion transplant where the blood stem cells were infused into the body through an intravenous line. A few hours after the transplant, Chavez was dancing in the play room of the hospital. The days of spinal taps and the cracking of the femur bone are gone. Instead, the procedure to donate and receive bone marrow is as easy as a blood donation, according to Campbell.
"(People) won't sign up because they think (donating bone marrow) is going to hurt," said Campbell. "The thing is it doesn't hurt. It's as easy as giving blood." If you are found to be a match to someone in need and if you decide to donate (someone who is registered as a potential donor still has the right to refuse donation), the DoD Marrow Donor Program will provide DoD service members, civilian employees and family members plus an escort transportation and lodging in the Washington, D.C., area while the donation takes place.
There are two ways to donate bone marrow. The older, less popular technique is to use a special needle and syringe to extract the marrow from the pelvic bone. Usually this method is only used when time is of the essence, such as a service member brought in from theater to donate. The newer, easier method is to remove peripheral blood stem cells from the bloodstream. According to the National Bone Marrow Donor Be The Match Registry Web site, www.marrow.org, four days prior to the donation and the day of the donation, the donor receives a daily injection of a synthetic hormone called Filgrastim. The hormone causes blood stem cells to move from the bone marrow to the bloodstream. A procedure known as apheresis, similar to donating plasma, is then conducted. Blood is removed from a vein in one arm, passed through a blood cell separator machine that collects the blood stem cells, platelets and some white blood cells, and then the machine returns the plasma and red blood cells to the donor through a vein in the other arm. The procedure can take up to six hours, and most donors only experience minor side effects such as slight aches and pains, tiredness, and nausea.
One year after the donation, donors and recipients can meet if they both choose to do so. The DoD Marrow Donor Program will make the arrangements for DoD service members, civilian employees and family members to meet their donor or recipient. The Chavez family plans to at least send a letter to the donor after the one-year time limit is over.
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