Area mom: Donors make a difference

Katie Stevens was excited to hear the Coeur d'Alene Rotary Club is hosting a bone marrow donor registry drive Saturday at North Idaho College.

Also a fundraising event, the marrow donor registry drive will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. inside NIC's Edminster Student Union Building, at the intersection of Garden Avenue and College Drive.

Because of bone marrow donor registration, multiple matches were quickly found for Katie Steven's son, Riley Stevens. Riley, 14, was diagnosed nearly three years ago with aplastic anemia, a rare condition that occurs when the bone marrow stops making enough red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets for the body.

Since he was 11, the Canfield Middle School eighth-grader has undergone oral chemotherapy treatment several times - once for an entire year - but his disease failed to respond. To be cured, he now needs a bone marrow transplant.

"He has no options outside of this," Katie said.

Medical professionals are ready to begin contacting the potential donors found for Riley to see if they are willing to commit to donation.

"As a mom, it's really hard to put that into words, for someone to give your child their only option at life," Katie said.

Coeur d'Alene Rotary Club member Barb Smalley said Saturday's drive is an opportunity for people between the ages of 18 and 44 to sign onto the registry.

"Every four minutes someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer and every 10 minutes someone dies," Smalley said. "So few people know about this registry and how easy it is to sign up unless they have an acquaintance with leukemia."

Katie Stevens said two potential donors for Riley decided against donation because they were afraid of the process.

The Rotary partnered with the Be The Match organization to coordinate the drive. Be The Match is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit that matches patients with donors, educates health care professionals and conducts research so more lives can be saved.

According to Be The Match, if a donor is called upon as a match, about 75 percent of transplants are currently done through peripheral blood stem cell donation, without surgery.

"It never costs anything to donate, ever," said Katie Stevens. "We - the patients and our insurance companies - pay for everything."

Roughly 70 percent of patients with life-threatening blood cancers and other blood marrow diseases do not have a matching donor in their family, so they turn to Be the Match.

During the drive, Be the Match will be distributing information about marrow and stem cell donations, accepting financial donations and adding potential donors to the registry.

The more people who register, the more likely that every patient in need of a transplant will be able to find a donor.

"The Be The Match representative for the Northwest, John Philpott is flying out for this event," Smalley said. " He said he does not remember another event like this being held in our community."

Smalley said the Rotary club is trying to reach as many people as possible who might want to join the registry, donate money or have questions.

To get on the registry, a donor needs to complete a brief health history form and provide a DNA sample taken by swabbing the inside of the donor's cheek.

There is no cost to join, and an individual will remain a member of the registry until he or she turns 61.

For more information, visit www.BeTheMatchFoundation.org/goto/Coeur, or call (800) MARROW-2.