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Contrary to what some may think, Jan Baker and I very often think alike. Not assumed to be a common phenomenon between birth moms and adoptive parents, the more we learn, the more we alike we find ourselves to be.
Case in point … today’s blog posts.
As I was sitting down to write about an international adoptee’s recent bone marrow transplant, I scrolled to see what else people have been writing about and came across Jan’s post on the same topic.
Sadly, we’re writing about two different kids who’ve been fighting life-threatening diseases for a very long time. On the up side, however, both are doing better.
Kailee Wells is an amazing ten-year-old. She was born in China, adopted into an American family that dreamed the dreams we all do for our children.
At the age of five, however, Kailee was diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia.
There is only one procedure that can save the life of a person with this ailment: a transfusion of either cord blood or bone marrow from a matching donor. In Kailee’s case as an international adoptee with no connection to her birth and no genetic ties to her family, there was no cord blood to be had nor donor to be found.
For five years she has been the General of troopers, undergoing every medical treatment known for the disease … “This drug or that…immune suppression…horse serum…rabbit serum… Zenapax…high dose Cytoxin, androgens, white cell boosters, red cell boosters… just to name a couple … This protocol or that. Transplant or no transplant. Cord blood transplant, bone marrow transplant, peripheral blood stem cell transplant. Manipulated cells, unmanipulated cells. Preconditioning with chemotherapy and radiation, no preconditioning. This transplant center or that. Seattle, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Bethesda, Boston, Memphis, Houston” … all of which have left her weak and vulnerable to secondary infections.
For more on Kailee’s story, on hope, and on this year’s drive to add marrow donors to the National Registry, see the next post.
