Register to be a hero and save a life
Published: May 13, 2005
Nick Parente found a hero last summer, and now his family and friends are looking for 100 more.
Diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia in July, 2002, Parente immediately began drug therapy and was able to complete his senor year at Lowell High School. But doctors stressed that drugs do not provide a cure, explaining that Parente needed a bone marrow transplant to be cancer-free. Since none of his family members provided an appropriate match, they turned to the National Marrow Donor Program.
From a pool of four million potential donors, an unrelated donor was found and after pre-transplant classes, tests and treatments, Parente received a bone marrow transplant June 16, 204 in a procedure similar to a blood transfusion.
“Our family will be forever grateful to the hero who, in our eyes, unselfishly donated their bone marrow to save the life of a perfect stranger,” said Nan Parente, Nick’s mother. While protocol provides anonymity between donor and recipient for at least a year, “We look forward to the day that we can thank our donor in person for their generous act of kindness,” she added.
In the meantime, while Nick Parente continues to recover from graft vs. host disease, pneumonia and influenza and regain his strength and weight, the Parente family and friends Kathy Heniff and Beverly Kussy have organized a collection drive to enlist more donor volunteers and raise awareness of the donor registry.
Nick’s parents, Nan and Rick Parente, are both teachers at Three Creeks Elementary School in Lowell, and Heniff and Kussy are coworkers who have both had children undergo the transplant process with family members as donors.
The donor registry drive will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 21 at Three Creeks Elementary School, 670 Burr St., and involves a small blood sample being taken and tested to determine the donor’s tissue type. Potential donors also complete a brief health questionnaire and sign a consent form to have their tissue type listed on the registry.
Potential donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60 years old and meet health guidelines.
If a potential donor is identified as a match with one of 3,000 patients searching the registry at any given time, further blood tests are needed to confirm the match, then an information session is held with medical staff to make sure an informed decision is made to donate bone marrow.
If a physical exam determines the donor is healthy and able to donate, a surgical procedure removes bone marrow from the pelvic bones while the donor is under general or regional anesthesia, so there is no discomfort. The amount of marrow removed depends on the size of the patient and will be replaced by the donor’s own body in 4-6 weeks.
Marrow donation is usually an outpatient procedure, and the donor may feel some stiffness and soreness in their lower back for up to a week. There is no charge to the donor for any tests, the donation, hospital stay or travel, but a donor may be asked to donate to a person of any ethnic origin anywhere in the world.
New potential donors are always needed because donors may withdraw their names at any time or reach age 60 and become ineligible, while more than 30,000 people a year are diagnosed with diseases for which a stem cell transplant can be a cure, but only 30 percent find a matching donor within their family.
The cost of processing each blood sample is $60, and to offset this expense, the Parente family and friends are collecting funds and have established a Transplant Hero Account at Centier Bank, with donations accepted at all Centier locations.
“We don’t want potential donors to have to incur this fee, so we have set a goal of raising $6,000 to cover the cost of processing 100 donors for the registry,” said Kussy, who has been listed with the registry herself for several years. Several generous donations have been received, but more funding is needed.
Not many people have the chance to run into a burning building or grab a child from the path of a moving car to save a life, but everyone has bone marrow that could save the life of a patient with leukemia or another fatal blood disease. “This is your chance to be a hero,” said Rick Parente of the donor registry. “We sincerely appreciate any form of support that you can give to our project.”
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