Page 12/The Battalion/Tuesday, January 22, 1985
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by^MacNeiiy Handicapped boy says
he’s a lucky individual
OKAY, PUT
HOW BIG WAS
Your SAMPLE’ 7
Associated Press
No central registry of donors exists
Bone marrow hard to find
Associated Press
TUCSON — Paul Stevens, 18, is
waiting to find a bone marrow do
nor. He has no other choice, since
his parents and four brothers and
sisters have been found to be incom
patible donors.
Unfortunately for Paul and others
like him, there is no centralized list
ing of potential donors willing to
give their bone marrow.
Stevens, who was forced to drop
out of the University of Arizona as a
freshman last fall after developing
pneumonia, remains confident he
will find a donor and overcome his
illness, which has been diagnosed as
pre-leukemic.
Medical centers in cities including
Seattle, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and
Portland, maintain lists of potential
donors who have been tissue-typed,
usually while having given blood or
because relatives needed trans
plants.
But not all such institutions have
agreements with each other.
“Seattle has an agreement only
with Milwaukee,” said Dr. Patrick
Beatty of the University of Washing
ton School of Medicine’s Fred Hut
chinson Cancer Research Center in
Seattle.
Beatty estimated that perhaps 500
bone marrow transplants are per
formed annually in the United
States, with about 250 to 300 of
those taking place at the 38-bed Hut
chinson center. The center has per
formed more than 2,000 operations
since 1970-71, said another staff
member, Dr. Fred Appelbaum.
Beatty estimated at least some
1,500 Americans each year might
benefit from marrow transplants
from unrelated donors — people
who have been tissue-typed as po
tential donors — if they could be
found more easily.
The donor’s HLA (human leuko
cyte antigen) blood component typ
ing must match the patient’s HLA.
The transplant process takes
about eight hours for the donor,
who is not at risk and generally
spends a few days in the hospital.
“There are probably 50,000 (po
tential donors in the United States)
in disjointed programs with no coor
dination,” said Bart Fisher, a Wash
ington, D.C., attorney whose son
died a year ago of aplastic anemia
before a compatible blood marrow
donor could be found.
DALLAS — Outside their one-
story brick home, the handicapped
children were sitting quietly on
benches until Marco appeared in his
wheelchair just a couple weeks after
undergoing back surgery. Then they
came to life.
Those who have their sight
screamed, “Hey, hey. Here’s
Marco.” Many followed, hovering
around his chair, touching his hand.
For these children at the Thelma
Boston Home for Handicapped
Children, this 13-year-old boy, who
is the size of a 2-year-old, is an inspi
ration. He’s their star. Their friend.
Marco is a victim of a relatively
rare birth defect called osteogenesis
imperfecta or what is sometimes re
ferred to as brittle bone disease. Be
cause the collagen, the scaffolding
from which bone is built, is formed
incorrectly, all his bone is extremely
thin and fragile.
Suffering from a severe case of
the disease, Marco was born with
broken bones. He spent the first five
years of his life in a body cast from
the chest down.
In 1976, doctors at Scottish Rite
Hospital for Crippled Children in
Dallas placed steel rods in his legs to
strengthen the bones. Then Marco
developed scoliosis, curvature of the
spine, so Dr. T ony Herring, Scottish
Rite’s chief of staff, decided a rod
should be placed in his spine in an
effort to straighten it.
The surgery went well and just a
few days before Christmas, Marco
returned to the Thelma Boston
Home in South Dallas where he lives
Marco is a victim of a rela
tively rare birth defect
called osteogenesis imper
fecta or what is sometimes
referred to as brittle bone
disease.
with 13 other handicapped children.
Marco feels empathy tor the other
foster children. Some are blind and
deaf, unable to say their names.
Many are mentally retarded. Speak
ing a complete sentence is a major
accomplishment for some of them.
Marco says he’s the lucky one. He's
an eighth-grader and a minister. He
recites poetry, plays a miniature syn
thesized piano and has a knack for
computers.
Marco came to the home when he
was 3 years old, after his mother, a
single teen-ager, was unable to care
for him and turned him over to the
Texas State Department of Human
Resources. The agency still has cus
tody of him and DHR officials re
quested Marco’s last name not be
used.
Boston clearly remembers his ar
rival. “He was real, real brittle then,”
she says. “The size of a doll with little
bitty legs,” she says, picking up a doll
on a couch next to her in the living
room. Now he’s about the size of an
18-month-old baby with an IQ of a
boy of 18.”
Even though there is so much
Marco will never be able to do, he
doesn’t seem bitter. “I can't go
SEVEN CHAPTERS
OF PHILOSOPHY
FOR TOMORROW AND A
ROCK CONCERT TONIGHT
YOU CAN DO IT!
It gets down to what you want to do and what you
have to do. Take the free Evelyn Wood Reading
Dynamics lesson and you can do it—handle all the
work college demands and still have time to enjoy
college life.
have used Reading Dynamics. It’s the way to read
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You can dramatically increase your reading speed
today and that’s just the start. Think of the time,
the freedom you’d have to do the things you want
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Don't get left behind because there was too much
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increase your reading speed and learn about
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lesson. Make the college life the good life. With
Reading Dynamics you can do it.
SCHEDULE OF FREE LESSONS
Location
College Station Comunity Center Tuesday, Jan. 22 2:00pm, 4:00 p.m. & 6:00 p.m.
1300 Jersey Street Wednesday, Jan. 23 1:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m. & 5:00 p.m.
Room 106
□ EVELYN WOOD READING DYNAMICS
r c) 1978 Evelyn Wood
Reading Dynamics Inc
Choose the day and time most convenient for you. No reservations are necessary. For
further information please call 1(800)447-READ.
around moping that I can’t walk,’!
says. “You can’t put yourself do*!
You can’t let it bother you
‘This God, he made me. That’s
way he wanted me to be.”
Boston, who ref uses to revealli |
age, reared eight children
working as a cook for various
schools in Oak Cliff. When the
child left home, her husband,
Boston, told her she could relax
and stop working. But she felteni|
with no children around. Sothefe
tons went to the DepartmentofH
man Resources asking to becoc
foster parents. T hat was in 1962.
She remembers one blind boyi
named Jackie who was found ala
doned in a ditch. He is not deaf,
doesn't speak. When he was
DHR officials arranged for him
go to a state institution. He knob
was leaving Boston and started
bite the DHR worker. Boston rock
him reassuringly in her arms,
told him: “You're going nowb
Jackie.” Boston adopted him
years ago.
She also hopes to adopt Man
when he turns 18. "I thinthesf
t(K> much potential to gotoasa
home,” Boston says.
One of Marco’s favorite poent
titled “Try Smiling." Leaningagaa
a pillow on his bed, he beginsili
poem: “Try smiling when
weather suits you not. Try sni
when your coffee isn't hot.Trya
ing when your neighbors doni
right and your reu
Sure is hard
smiling....”
la lives all fiji
but then you mighi
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1
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Fall 1985
Italy
Ivii Rxggerina
DR. ELTON ABBOTT, /
will speak at the
American Institute
of
Architectural Students
EE EE TI f\l G
UJednesday, January 23
ARCHITECTURE CENTER
Building C, Room 111
7:30 p»m
Semester in Italy
All Students Welcome
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