As many of you may know by now, Cleveland Clinic called us on Tuesday, April 28th (Happy Birthday Karin) to tell us that a match was found for Jessica through the National Registry! Not just any old match, but an 8 out of 8 match! "OH MY GOD!!!", repeated incessantly, was pretty much all of our reactions! All we were told was that the donor was a 50 year old female who was just entered into the registry last week. Wow! Just like me!! We told the Clinic to go ahead and do their verification testing and see if the donor was available. Now keep in mind, a donor transplant is not an easy "fix" for cancer. There are many complications that can arise from this procedure and stats show that 30-40% of patients die due to complications from a transplant. Yes. There are many people alive and well because they were given a new chance at life from a transplant, but...there is that very promising Clinical Trial that is opening up in Cleveland at the end of May that Jess was planning on doing......ooohhhh....what to do.......
After doing our research and talking to Jess' doctors, we felt that it would be best to still go forward with the Trial. Keep this in mind: a transplant is not a guarantee for a cure. Not all transplants work. There are patients who relapse afterwards and then have to have more chemo to keep things in check. And once you have a donor transplant, you are no longer eligible for any clinical trials. So our thoughts were to enter the Trial, which can put Jess into a full remission and if the Trial should not work, then look into the transplant. Hopefully the donor would be willing to wait in the wings....just in case....
Forward to today. Thursday. I came home to find a message on my answering machine...from the National Marrow Donor Program of all people. The message was for me. I was asked if I was willing to be a donor for a 24 year old female lymphoma patient under a "hold for work up" status since they probably would not be ready to transplant for at least a few months! WOW!! I sure did wish that someone was home who could pinch me...coincidence????? Wait....This was all getting way too weird....
Phone calls were made to Cleveland and to the Program from me, to me, to each other - you get the point. Yes. The donor is me BUT I am NOT a match. I was typed through Cleveland when I was tested months ago for Jessica but both Johnny and I were only a 4/8 match. I got a copy of my results and gave them to the Program at Jessica's Donor Drive for the registry. The results show the patient (Jess) and the person being tested (me) on the same page with both results listed. Apparently, the information was entered into the Registry with my name and personal information BUT with JESSICA'S results. Human err. And what a doozey this err has been.
So through a cruel twist of disappointing fate (i.e. human error) the decision has been made for us as far as which road to choose. That shred of hope that I had those months ago of being the perfect match for my daughter did come true for that one moment today. It felt good. Really good. And it'll feel a whole lot better when I hear that she's really on her way to being cured!!
Please keep praying for Jessica. I know that God is listening but maybe the channel is just not clearly tuned in.
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