Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991 TAG: 9104050539
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"It makes me angry that life depends on money," Kathleen O'Malley of Roanoke said. Her 18-year-old daughter, Melissa, was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in June and is having a bone-marrow transplant this month at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wash.
"What if we couldn't do this?" O'Malley asked. "It frustrates me . . . We're just lucky we have people who can do something about it," she said in an interview the night before she and her daughter flew to Seattle last month.
Friends in Roanoke have organized a concert to raise money to help pay the O'Malleys' expenses of $50,000, not covered by insurance.
The concert is 6 p.m. Sunday at The Coffee Pot on Brambleton Avenue and features local artists Martin & Wilbourn, Trucker's Delight, and The Kings. All proceeds from the $6 tickets and part of the food and drink sales will be donated.
The idea started with a few friends eager to help. But for a long time they felt helpless and awkward talking about the disease, said Brenda Giles, a friend of the O'Malleys.
Giles had experience in raising funds for the muscular dystrophy and leukemia societies and helped coordinate the concert.
"It gives people something to do to make them feel worthwhile," she said.
Perhaps the driving force behind the concert came from Kathleen O'Malley's fiance, Don Pritchard.
During his three years with O'Malley, he developed a close relationship with his soon-to-be stepdaughter. It was difficult watching her health deteriorate, he said. It was the hurt in her eyes and seeing her so sick that she couldn't talk to anyone that was hard to handle, he said.
Melissa O'Malley, 18, is a 1990 Cave Spring High School graduate and planned to study chemistry at Virginia Tech.
It was during the university's medical examination that the doctor discovered her white blood cell count was extremely high. In June, she was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia.
She underwent extensive chemotherapy and cranial radiation at the Roanoke Cancer Center before heading out to the Hutchinson Center in Seattle. A perfect bone-marrow match was found through a donor bank at the center, which keeps the donor's name anonymous.
O'Malley suffered a fourth relapse recently at the center, Pritchard said.
"She's not a happy camper, but is bearing up well under the pain and the stress," Pritchard said. With a weight gain from taking steroids and hair loss from chemotherapy, she feels like Alvin the Chipmunk. And she can do a pretty good imitation when she puffs out her chin, he said.
For local musician Joe Yates, who will sing with The Kings, Melissa O'Malley reminds him of his sister who died three months after a similar transplant in 1989.
"I got to meet her [Melissa O'Malley] just before they left. She had a scarf around her head and she looked exactly like my sister," he said.
Yates was a donor for his sister, Betsy. Despite his sister's death, he is convinced O'Malley's transplant will be successful, as long as she remains in the hospital until her body has rebuilt its immune system.
Yates believes his sister died because she left the hospital before her body was able to fight an infection.
But staying in the hospital is "where the expense comes in," he said.
Kathleen O'Malley is living in a small apartment two blocks from the hospital so she can help in the daily care of her daughter. Melissa O'Malley must spend four months in the hospital to ensure complete recovery from the transplant.
Insurance does not cover flights to Washington state or living expenses, which is why a fund-raiser was necessary, Kathleen O'Malley said.
"I've been overwhelmed with people" wanting to help, she said. "It's just wild. If we've learned one thing it's that people do care, but they just don't have the chance to show it" until a near tragedy happens.
Members of Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic, students and staff at Cave Spring, and Sherertz Franklin Crawford Shaffner Inc. and its employees have helped raise about $3,000 for Melissa O'Malley's expenses.
Donations may be sent to the Melissa Reid O'Malley Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic Church, 2505 Electric Road S.W., Roanoke 24018.
by CNB