In hours, stem cell donor can save a life
Stem cell procedure is easy and largely painless and makes a
difference, Pella woman says
By TONY LEYS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
October 3, 2007
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Iowa City, Ia. - Mary Mendenhall-Core rests her arms out from her
sides as she leans back in a gray reclining chair.
A clear plastic tube is drawing blood out of her left arm, and
another tube is returning most of the blood into her right arm.
Mendenhall-Core, 44, of Pella says she barely feels the needles in
her arms. She has a friend cracking jokes from a nearby chair, and a
cozy blanket is pulled over her legs and body. Her only tasks are to
sit in the recliner for a few hours and to periodically squeeze a
piece of rubber in her left hand to keep the blood flowing in her arm.
"I'm just lying here, chillin'," she said with a grin.
She looks as if she's making a routine blood donation, but it is much
more serious business. A whirring, clicking machine is spinning stem
cells out of the blood, then siphoning them off in a pink liquid that
drips into a little plastic bag.
In an unidentified hospital somewhere else, a stranger is waiting for
a half-pint of that pink liquid. The woman has leukemia, and it
couldn't be cured with chemotherapy. So doctors are taking a more
drastic approach. They have used chemotherapy or radiation to destroy
the woman's immune system and any remaining cancer cells, and they
will use Mendenhall-Core'
There is a 40 percent to 60 percent chance that the procedure will
save the stranger's life. Those odds were plenty to persuade
Mendenhall-Core to spend a morning at University of Iowa Hospitals,
donating her stem cells.
Mendenhall-Core became interested in the process in 1998, when her
daughter, Erin, was diagnosed with leukemia at age 16. Erin wound up
recovering without needing a transfusion, but Mendenhall-Core
volunteered to donate for anyone who was a match.
Six million Americans and 4 million other people have joined a
registry of potential donors. In the past, they gave blood samples.
Now, they can give saliva samples on cotton swabs and mail them in.
Only 2 percent of volunteers are ever asked to donate. "It's pretty
special when you're a match with someone," said Julee Darner, donor
services coordinator for the Iowa Marrow Donor Program, based here.
About 26,000 Iowans are on the donor registry. About 40 per year are
asked to donate. If they're called, they are asked to travel to Iowa
City or to out-of-state centers, including hospitals in Omaha and
Minneapolis.
Mendenhall-Core hopes other potential donors will sign up. She said
the process is much less painful than many people fear. In most
cases, donors are asked to do what she is doing. She took five days'
worth of injections of a drug that stimulates production of special
stem cells in the blood. Then she drove to Iowa City, where she was
reimbursed for her travel expenses, meals and a night in a hotel.
The only side effects she felt were a few aches from the medicine.
Most of the donations are used for leukemia patients. Others go to
patients with lymphoma or related diseases. A few donors are asked to
give bone marrow. That procedure is more involved, because it
includes local or general anesthesia and a tap into the hip bone. But
even those donors go home the same day, and they generally are left
with just a few days' worth of soreness, Darner said.
Mendenhall-Core would like to meet the recipient of her stem cells,
but she is unsure whether that will happen. Both parties must agree
to a meeting, and it usually is not set up for a year or more. Darner
said the precautions are taken so the recipient does not feel
obligated to reward the donor, and so the donor does not feel
obligated to give again if the first set of stem cells fails to work.
Mendenhall-Core'
donor-network employee will take to the hospital where the recipient
is waiting. The network had to get special dispensation to carry the
donated cells onto commercial flights because anti-terrorism rules
ban most liquids from carry-on luggage.
Once the cells are transfused, the recipient will spend about two
weeks in an isolation room because she will be susceptible to
infections. If the transfusion works, the cells will burrow into her
bone marrow and rebuild her immune system.
Mendenhall-Core has heard that if she had allergies, the recipient of
her stem cells probably would get them, too. She doesn't have
allergies, but she jokingly wondered whether the woman will pick up
anything else from her: "I wonder if she'll like Diet Pepsi?"
She is amazed that out of 10 million possible donors, she was chosen
as the best match for the stranger. She said she thinks about her
daughter's recovery, and wondered about a possible connection.
Along with her stem cells, Mendenhall-Core is sending a simple,
silver bracelet. Dangling from the bracelet are four wooden Scrabble
pieces: "H-O-P-E."
Reporter Tony Leys can be reached at (515) 284-8449 or tleys@dmreg.
http://desmoinesreg
AID=/20071003/
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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