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My Best Friend From H.S. Helped Save a Life :)
Bone marrow donor, recipient feel like family
FLINT
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
By Paul Janczewski
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
By donating bone marrow to a leukemia patient who was 10 days from death, Amy M. Kline gained a family by transfusion.
Earlier this month, Kline, a law clerk for Genesee Circuit Judge Robert M. Ransom, met the man who received her bone marrow in 2001.
"He was so happy to meet me," said Kline, 27, of Swartz Creek. "He welcomed me into his family. He said his body was now creating blood with my DNA, so that made us family."
Jean Francois Sierra, 50, of Gloucester, Mass., said he likely would have died without the bone marrow.
"In a way, she saved my life, and now she's like a sister to me," he said in a telephone interview.
Kline is publicizing her story because she wants to encourage others to contribute blood and enter the National Marrow Donor Program.
A marrow typing drive is set for noon-8 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at the Fashion Square Mall in Saginaw. More information is available by calling Gail Manntz at the Saginaw Valley Blood Program at (866) 642-5663.
Finding a bone marrow match for a sick person still is chancy, but the odds increase as more people are tested and added to the bone marrow registry.
With a bone marrow transplant, patients with some blood diseases are given a survival rate of between 19 percent to 55 percent. Without a transplant, the survival rate is zero to 15 percent at best.
While a student at Central Michigan University in 1995, Kline and her friends regularly donated blood. She also submitted blood to the marrow registry that year.
Her DNA and other information was placed in a data bank, and in November 2000, she was notified that she was a potential match for a person who needed a transplant.
After agreeing to the procedure, having her blood retested and several other medical procedures, Kline's marrow was removed in a Grand Rapids hospital.
The outpatient procedure consists of a large needle - "I'm talking BIG," Kline said - inserted into a pelvic bone to extract the marrow.
She was under anesthetia and felt no pain then and only mild discomfort for a few days. Her marrow was immediately shipped to Sierra, a man whom she knew nothing about.
Sierra, a fashion photographer, said he began experiencing pain in his chest, bones and muscles in October 2000 and was diagnosed with acute leukemia.
Two brothers and two sisters were tested but were not acceptable marrow donors.
"So I waited and waited," Sierra said.
When he was notified a Michigan woman's marrow was a close match, Sierra said, he was very relieved.
"They told me her marrow was not a perfect match, but it was close enough," he said.
While he did not get better immediately after the transplant, he was still alive.
"It's been a very, very long journey," Sierra said of his battle to regain full health.
Even though six eye operations in five months have robbed him of his ability to take photographs, he co-owns a company importing French products.
Born in France and divorced with no children, Sierra said he has good days and bad days.
Because of the confidentiality of the donor program, Kline and Sierra could not even know each others' identities until a year after he received the marrow.
They spoke on the telephone earlier this year and made arrangements to meet in person.
"There were tears on both ends," Kline said of their first conversation.
"It was amazing to know I could help someone to that extent."
After meeting in Massachusetts, Kline said, she and Sierra talk every few weeks and are making plans for her to visit him and his other relatives in France someday soon.
"We have this bond together," she said. "Biologically, we're a family."
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