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Today is a very special one for the family of Bryan and Holly Smith Pelkey of Mattamiscontis.
Today is the day the couple and their three children – Elizabeth, 13; Hillary, 10; and Jacob, 7 – celebrate the one-year “birthday” of Elizabeth, who received a bone marrow transplant on April 17, 2000.
Elizabeth was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 11.
After a harrowing seven-month wait for a matching donor, Elizabeth’s condition worsened to the point where she had to undergo a successful, experimental transplant from a half-matched sibling, Jacob, who was 6 at the time.
Holly Pelkey read in this column recently about the American Red Cross Blood Services New England Region Bangor Donor Center blood drive and bone marrow testing from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at Wells Commons on the Orono campus of the University of Maine.
In a letter to the NEWS, Pelkey commented about “how fitting” it is for this day “to be the date of a blood drive/bone marrow drive” since it is also Elizabeth’s one-year bone marrow transplant anniversary.
“Many children and adults around the world are waiting for a donor for a bone marrow transplant,” Pelkey wrote. “The process is simple, yet few know of it. You can sign up to be a donor at the Red Cross Center or at specially designated blood/bone marrow drive” such as the one taking place today. A sample of blood is drawn from your arm and sent away to be typed. Often, there is a fee involved to register, but at the UMO drive, there is no fee.”
Then Pelkey makes a personal plea for individuals to participate in this event.
“Please give serious consideration to registering,” she wrote. “I have seen the grateful faces of moms, dads and the children, themselves, who have received the ‘gift of life’ from their donor. I have, personally, felt the heartache and discouragement of being told, sorry, your donor changed his/her mind.”
She has also seen the tears of a parent who has waited two years for a matched donor for a 4-year-old daughter.
“Please register to donate. Young, healthy marrow donors are badly needed.”
Because this family was tested for one of its own, the family was able to help another.
Last June, when the Pelkey family returned from Children’s Hospital in Boston following Elizabeth’s transplant, Bryan was contacted and asked to be a donor for a 2-year-old boy with cancer.
“We were overjoyed!” Kelly Pelkey wrote.
“After all God had brought us through, He blessed again by allowing Bryan to be a donor.”
Last October, Bryan Pelkey spent a day in Boston being “harvested” for the little boy and returned home the following day “with a sore back” and a couple days off from work, “but it was a small price to pay for the extended life of a little boy. The letter of gratitude from his mom and dad will be treasured forever.”
Pelkey also wrote that during Elizabeth’s transplant, she “received about 50 red blood cell transfusions and 30 platelet transfusions.
“Please remember to donate blood and platelets to the Red Cross. Some days, we were put on a waiting list because there were not enough. It’s easy to donate blood, and it is appreciated more than you will ever know.”
Because of those donated blood products and the transplant, Elizabeth Pelkey can now ride her bicycle and go skiing. But, without those donations, her family knows “she would not be alive today.”
In closing, Kelly Pelkey appealed, again, for people to step forward for bone marrow testing.
“As I write this letter, two young boys from the Lincoln area and two other children from the Eastern Maine Medical Center specialty clinic in Bangor wait for a bone marrow transplant. God has blessed our family through the love, support and generosity of these communities,” and the Pelkeys pray for the same good fortune for these other families as well.
To all who have been tested, and all who have donated blood or bone marrow, the Pelkeys say “thank you.”
Kelley Pelkey told me that she and her family know Tristan Hersey of Glenburn, the 9-year-old third-grader whose wait for a bone marrow donor I wrote about in the column she read on Monday, April 2.
After talking with Pelkey on Monday, I called Tristan’s grandmother, Joletta Campbell, with whom he lives, to check on his condition. Unfortunately, the news was not good.
The family had been hoping for word, any day, that a match had been found for Tristan, but they learned recently that it is going to take much longer than previously expected.
A detailed check of Tristan’s ethnic background indicates he is of American Indian descent, Campbell said, something the family did not know.
That fact narrows the donor base, the family was told.
“Because he is of Native American Indian decent, there are fewer donors,” Campbell said.
Obviously, the family hopes anyone in our area who is of American Indian heritage will take this opportunity to be tested.
“It might not be for Tristan, but it might help someone else” with his ethnic background, Campbell said, “because it doesn’t matter how far back it goes, it changes the match and is harder to find.”
Tristan has been at EMMC since February.
He was able to come home for a few days recently, but when his temperature flared up, he had to return to the hospital.
The family is appealing to all American Indians in the area to consider being tested as a potential bone marrow donor.
Since the testing today at the University of Maine is free, this would be a wonderful time to make the offer of the “gift of life.”
Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.
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