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March 17, 2000/10 Adar II, Vol. 52, No.28
Family turns to community for bone-marrow donor
LEISAH NAMM
Staff Writer
One day during her first week of third grade, Michaela Wexler, or "Kayla," came home with bruises all over her skin. Kayla told her mom, Debbie Wexler, that she had played a tough game of tetherball.
But her mom became worried.
"She was fine one day and the next day she was covered with bruises. She looked like an abused child," Debbie recalls.
A pediatrician incorrectly diagnosed Kayla's symptoms as an ITP-platelet disorder and started her on steroid therapy. After two weeks of unsuccessful treatments and six weeks of more tests, Kayla was diagnosed with aplastic anemia.
Aplastic anemia is a disorder that results from the unexplained failure of the bone marrow to produce blood cells. According to the University of Texas-Houston Department of Pathology's Medical Education Information Center Web site, when bone marrow cell production fails, normal blood levels of red and white blood cells and platelets fall to dangerously low levels. Red cells carry oxygen from the lungs to all areas of the body; white cells fight infection by attacking and destroying germs; and platelets control bleeding by forming blood clots in areas of injury. When blood-cell levels fall, the body may experience bleeding, infection and anemia (lack of iron).
Aplastic anemia can affect anyone regardless of age, gender, race or ethnicity.
Kayla needs a bone-marrow transplant in order to survive.
Since her tissue type does not match that of her own family, her doctors say her next best chance for a match will come from an Ashkenazic Jew.
The Phoenix Jewish community has begun a bone-marrow donor search, according to Talia Katz, a friend of the family who has helped organize the search.
Information about the search was posted on the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix's Web site on March 7. Within two days, Katz received 50 e-mail messages requesting more information, she says.
"It's a Jewish child that needs Jewish bone marrow in order to survive. To me, it doesn't get any more basic than this. Just one person helping out another person. Pretty simple stuff," Katz says.
Before she was sick, Kayla enjoyed in-line skating, dancing and playing outside with other kids, her mom says. "She's a super, super active kid."
Although she still plays outside with other children, "she can't play ball or skate because of the danger of getting hit in the head," Debbie Wexler says. That would be dangerous because her blood cannot clot, due to her low platelet count.
"By the intensity of which she plays, you wouldn't know what's wrong with her," her mother says of Kayla. "The energy level she's able to maintain is incredible."
However, the 9-year-old's physical appearance has changed - the disease causing her healthy complexion to pale, and leaving dark circles under her once-bright, hazel eyes.
Debbie gives one shot to Kayla daily, in addition to a liquid anti-rejection medication. In the past few months, Kayla has managed to attend school about two days a week, Debbie says. Between home schooling, the support of her teacher and classmates and her being a bright child, her low attendance has not affected her academically, her mom says. Kayla does her part to stay on top of things in school, her mother says. "She wants to be normal."
Every week, Debbie takes Kayla from their Prescott home to Phoenix Children's Hospital so she can receive the blood and platelet transfusions that are necessary to keep her alive, Debbie says.
Kayla has two half-sisters and had a brother who was killed in a car accident two years ago. She lives with her mother. Her father, Larry Wexler, lives in Phoenix and belongs to Beth El Congregation, where Kayla is scheduled to become a bat mitzvah on Sept. 20, 2003.
Kayla realizes the severity of her condition, her mom says, but "she has never believed she will succumb to the illness." When Kayla first found out about it, she asked if she was going to die.
"I told her that many people used to die from it but now they know much more about it and they are finding ways to treat it," Debbie says. "She has no intention of not surviving."
On March 18, Kayla and her mom will travel to Duke University, in Durham, N.C., to consult with Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, director of the pediatric cord-blood transplant unit at Duke University Medical Center.
Cord-blood transplant is another option for treating children with cancer. During such transplants, blood from an umbilical cord is injected into the patient. Umbilical cord blood is a source of immature blood-forming cells known as stem cells. The stem cells grow in the patient's body and direct production of the blood cells.
Those wishing to become a volunteer bone-marrow donor need to register at one of the eight Valley United Blood Services locations (see box) and provide a small sample of blood. A donor must be between ages 18 and 60, and in good health. The cost of the test is $21.
United Blood Services will also be available to register donors and take blood samples at various Jewish-sponsored events during March and April.
For more information, e-mail Talia Katz at taliakatz@aol.com.
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