THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502220039
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAM STARR, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 169 lines
JOHN HAILE SMILES at his wife and tries to reassure her before the gurney is wheeled into the elevator at the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington.
``Now, don't you worry, darlin' chile,'' he says in a slow South Carolina drawl, looking up at Teressa's tear-streaked face. ``Everything's gonna be all right.''
He waves and disappears, inch by inch, as the elevator doors slowly close. It's 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 7, and a doctor is waiting downstairs to extract bone marrow from Haile's hips. A 22-year-old female cancer patient will be infused with Haile's bone marrow later that day.
Teressa bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands.
``There goes my hero,'' she says. ``He's the bravest person I know.''
Haile's bone marrow is being harvested, as it's called, in a painful procedure that will give a deathly ill stranger another shot at life. A huge syringe will dig deep into his numbed pelvic bone for two hours and extract 650 cc's (22 ounces) of bone marrow.
The marrow will be shipped immediately to an undisclosed location for a transplant. The new blood cells from the healthy bone marrow will start to repopulate in the recipient's body within three weeks, literally giving that person a new immune system.
Haile gets nothing in return, except an all-expenses-paid trip to a hospital and a sore lower back for a few days. And the warm fuzzy from trying to make a positive difference in someone else's life.
It's altruism in its purest form. ``All the donors are like that; they have hearts of gold,'' says Kathy Davis, donor specialist at Georgetown. ``They're wonderful, they really are. It takes a special kind of person to do this.''
Haile, 36, signed up to be a bone marrow donor in 1990 while stationed in Pearl Harbor. The Navy electrician is now aboard the USS Roosevelt, and he also works part time at an Exxon station. When the Department of Defense's bone marrow program contacted Haile last November for further testing, he didn't hesitate.
The tests revealed he was a perfect match for an anonymous patient. Haile's healthy marrow is her best gamble to beat the cancer. Under a privacy law, donors and recipients cannot contact each other until a year has passed since the transplant. And then, both people have to agree to the contact.
``This is because a lot of donors became upset if the patient died; they blamed themselves,'' Kathy Davis, a nurse, said. ``No one can know where this marrow is going, and to whom.''
But why give part of your body to a stranger?
``It's the Christian thing to do,'' says Haile, a devout Baptist, before going into surgery. ``My wife's aunt had breast cancer. We thought this was some way to give back to someone, to save a life.''
Only patients who are near death are candidates for transplants. And only 50 percent who receive new marrow will survive. The National Marrow Donor Program in Minneapolis has 1.5 million donors in its computerized registry and conducts 2,000 searches on an average day.
Haile's match was found in just a few hours.
After the elevator doors close, Teressa walks through the confusing maze of hallways in the Lombardi Cancer Center, a wing of the medical center. She's upset that she can't be in the operating room or the recovery room with John.
Teressa waits anxiously in their hotel room at the Georgetown University Conference Center, a stone's throw from the medical center. She flips through television channels until the phone rings at 8:30 a.m. It's Davis, telling Teressa that John is halfway through the procedure and doing fine. She calls back at 10 to let her know that John will be in recovery until 11.
``I am so nervous!'' Teressa says, hurrying across the street in the frigid air. ``I hope he's OK.''
She hops off the elevator on the fourth floor and turns into the observation unit. John is sitting up in bed, laughing and joking with Davis, momentarily stunning his wife.
``How's my hero?'' she asks as they embrace.
``Doin' just fine,'' he answers with bloodshot brown eyes and a deathly pale face. ``You can quit worryin' now.''
After lunch John falls into a deep sleep under the watchful eyes of Teressa. He dozes for the rest of the afternoon, waking only to use the bathroom. His hips, still a bit numb from the anesthetic, don't hurt, but he walks as if he just got off a horse.
At 8 p.m., after a complimentary steak and shrimp dinner, Capt. Robert Hartzman visits. He's the director of the Department of Defense bone marrow program in Bethesda, Md., and is dressed in full Navy uniform.
``Hi, John, I just wanted to thank you for what you've done,'' says Hartzman, extending a hand.
John, impressed, sits up and shakes his hand. ``Thank you for coming to see me,'' he replies.
Hartzman chats with the Hailes and says John may be asked to donate more of his marrow at a later date. No problem, John says.
It's a complicated procedure when someone needs a transplant, Hartzman explains. The body's defenses are wiped out first with chemotherapy and radiation, because if the recipient's immune system isn't destroyed, it will attack the new marrow.
That's why it's so important for donors to have the same genetic makeup and ethnic background as the recipients, adds Hartzman. John's Scottish and German ancestry is probably very similar to the recipient's.
``If your grandparents came from a small village in Mongolia, you'll have a problem finding a match,'' Hartzman says. ``The probability of finding a perfect match depends on how common your background is.
``Donating bone marrow is impressive,'' he says, smiling at the Hailes. ``You don't do this unless it comes from the heart.''
The pain hit John in the middle of the night, a sharp ache that woke him twice. He tried switching sides and putting the pillow under his hips but nothing worked.
The anesthesia had definitely worn off, he realized.
John slept fitfully until 7 a.m., when a nurse entered with a breakfast tray and a pain pill, Tylenol with codeine. At 8, Teressa and Kathy Davis visit. Davis asks a bleary-eyed John if the nurse took any blood.
``Yeah, and I took a shower,'' he says, fighting to stay awake. ``It drained off the old blood. I thought I was leakin'.''
He shifts his weight uncomfortably and tries to stifle a yawn.
``I feel like somebody kicked me in the butt,'' he says with a laugh. ``A mule.''
John is getting discharged today, but he has to wait until a doctor signs the papers. He drifts in and out of sleep until 10, when Dr. Patricia Conrad does her rounds. Conrad performed the harvesting and tells John that everything went fine, and to take the pain medication only if needed.
Getting out of the bed is a struggle. And it doesn't help to hear that the man across the hall had twice the amount of bone marrow harvested yesterday and doesn't feel a thing. John, a little embarrassed, asks Conrad about the other donor.
``He's 10 years older than you,'' she says. ``When you age, your bones soften. It doesn't hurt as much.''
John nods and gingerly swings his legs over the side of the bed. Everyone but his wife leaves the room so he can get dressed. In a few minutes, John emerges wearing the white sweat pants and Hurricanes sweat shirt he wore when he checked in.
``Man, I am sore!'' he exclaims.
They hold hands and slowly shuffle back through the maze of hallways. Teressa gazes at her husband adoringly as he alternately cracks jokes and winces in pain. They'll be spending that night in the conference center and will fly home to Virginia Beach the following day.
``I'm going to try to wait on him hand and foot,'' she says, squeezing his arm. ``That's my hero.'' ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff color photos
Teressa Haile kisses husband John before the surgery to harvest his
bone marrow. The procedure will give a deathly ill stranger another
chance at life.
John Haile talks with his attending physician, Dr. Richard Cahill,
above, after the surgery. The next day, John wakes with a sore lower
back.
Graphic
HOW TO BECOME A BONE MARROW DONOR
More than 3,100 Americans have donated bone marrow since 1987,
including 23 from the Mid-Atlantic region.
The American Red Cross Mid-Atlantic Region schedules bone marrow
drives several times throughout the year. they are free. If you
would like to be tested at another time, the cost is $45, unless you
are a minority.
The federal government has given the Red Cross a grant for
minority bone marrow testing, which can be done at any time. There
is a desperate need across the nation for bone marrow donors of
African-American, Asian-Pacific Islander, Hispanic and Native
American descent.
Donors must be 18 to 55 years of age and can be called upon until
their 56th birthday. All that's needed is a consent form and 2
tablespoons of blood drawn from the arm.
For more information locally, call 1-800-MARROW7. To reach the
National Marrow Donor Program in Minneapolis, call 1-800-MARROW2.
by CNB