Go 4th swells bone marrow registry
Monday, July 14, 2008 6:57 PM PDT
By Cheryll A. Borgaard
Printable version
E-mail this articleDavid Maligro is feeling enthused about signing up more than 100 people for the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry at his booth at the Go 4th celebration at Lake Sacajawea.
“The first day was kind of slow, and we only had about seven people and no donations,” Maligro said. “The next two days we had people come specifically to sign up, from Vancouver, Astoria and locally. Day three was the biggest, when we had 73 people sign up and $2,000-plus in donations. We ended up with 109 total.”
Maligro’s interest in getting more people to join the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry stems from the medical problems of his 12-year-old grandson, Joshua Maligro, who has acute myelogenous leukemia, a rare form of cancer.
No marrow matches could be found for Joshua, who lives in Brentwood, Calif. Instead, doctors sought cord blood, which comes from umbilical cords, the next best thing to a marrow transplant.
“They found two ‘close’ cord matches — one in Spain and one in Italy,” Maligro said. “The first one came from Spain, but when it got here, it was ruined and they had to throw it out.”
The cord blood from Italy was a “near” match, meaning four out of six factors aligned to Joshua’s DNA. After undergoing a four days of total body radiation, followed by three days of chemotherapy, Joshua received the cord blood June 17.
“The radiation kills all the cells in the blood to kickstart white blood cells,” Maligro said. Physicians take stem cells from the cord blood and “engineer the cells to make marrow, which is the ‘factory’ for all blood production.”
Joshua will be in the hospital for another month, Maligro said Thursday.
“We’re still kind of cautious in our optimism. There’s still a chance of rejection or infection.”
After that, Joshua will stay in a “safe house” near the hospital for three more months. “He needs to be within half an hour of the hospital, and they live 1 1/2 hours away,” Maligro said.
Joshua has experienced some minor side effects — bone pain, nausea and poor appetite because his taste buds were destroyed by the chemo.
“The relapse was a blow. Not finding a marrow match was a blow,” Maligro said. “There are still no perfect marrow matches, but the search is still on.”
Maligro said he was pleased with the number of people who registered at Go 4th, but there were other benefits of manning the booth during Go 4th.
“What was heartwarming was people who had a history of leukemia and who were marrow recipients, coming up to me and thanking me,” he said.
He also expressed gratitude to the Go 4th Committee, which waived the rental fee.
The steps to join the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry are simple: Participants fill out a confidential two-page form that includes some health history. Four inside-the-cheek swabs are taken with what looks like giant Q-tips (it’s painless — no blood or marrow is drawn). The swabs and paperwork are then forwarded to the registry.
People who agree to register are asked to donate $25 to help fund the DNA testing of the swabs. College students, firemen and policemen can register for free.
To arrange a bone marrow donor registration drive for your business, church, sports or civic group, call David Maligro at 423-4897 (home) or (360) 936-2608 (cell) or e-mail him at d.maligro@netzero.net
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