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Brotherly bonds
Man's sibling provides stem cells for transplant
Jeremiah Tucker
Globe Staff Writer
GRANBY, Mo. - 2/27/05 - It's safe to say that Paul and Alex Jarvis are closer now than ever before, biologically speaking. Of the bone marrow in Paul Jarvis' body, 92 percent of it is actually his brother's.
Paul Jarvis, 24, Granby, is the eldest brother by one year, but twice he has had to rely on his younger sibling for a stem-cell transplant in order to replenish his own bone marrow.
The elder of the two Jarvis brothers was diagnosed with aplastic anemia in 1999. This rare form of anemia is a blood disease which occurs when a body's bone marrow stops replenishing the blood stream with new cells. If untreated it is fatal.
When asked if he and his brother were close, Paul Jarvis said, "Yeah, we're a close match as far (the stem cells) go." For medical purposes, the two brothers were indeed close. In fact, they were a perfect match.
"There is only a 25-percent chance that one of your siblings will be a perfect match," Paul Jarvis said.
As for how well they get along? Well, they're typical brothers. "He lives at the same house I do," Paul Jarvis said. "Well, he showers there at least."
He said his brother's pretty busy taking classes at Crowder College. Paul said Alex was in the U.S. Army when he was initially diagnosed. Alex served three years and is now a member of the Army Reserves while he takes classes.
As for Paul Jarvis' own life, he said he hopes this latest transfusion takes, so he can get back to his life and his work at Branco Construction in Neosho.
His first transfusion in January 2004 and the chemotherapy that proceeded it made him lose his hair, 35 pounds and several weeks of work.
Yet it didn't take. The chemotherapy before the transfusion is to kill all the bad bone marrow, but in the months that followed too much of the bad marrow remained.
So, in December he had to undergo another transfusion. This time before the transfusion, he underwent full-body radiation therapy in addition to chemotherapy.
He said the combination made him sick. By comparison, the transfusion, which he said is a lot like donating plasma, is a breeze.
"You just sit in a chair for or five hours while the blood goes from his arm (his brother, Alex) through a machine which sorts out what is needed and then into me," Paul Jarvis said. "It's not too painful. He (Alex) might say so, but I've been through a lot worse, so it's not that big of a deal."
Pat Styron, who goes to the same church as Paul Jarvis, has known him and his younger brother their whole lives. Styron helped organize today's benefit for Jarvis.
"He is so deserving of it," Styron said of Paul Jarvis. "He's grown up to be a really nice young man and has been a member of our church (Granby First Baptist Church) for a long time. He works with the youth at the church and drives the church van to pick up the older people."
Paul Jarvis said he hopes he won't need another transfusion. He said the chemotherapy doses he is given are much larger and concentrated than what the normal cancer patient receives, and he's not sure he can do it again. He also said that with each subsequent transfusion, the chances become less that his body will accept the cells.
As for is brother providing the cells for the transfusions, Paul Jarvis said it was a given.
"I don't think mom was going to give him much of a choice," Jarvis said and smiled. "No, he was fine with doing it. It's kind of like one of those family deals where it's just expected."
‘Poor’ doesn’t equal ‘criminal’
By GREG SOWINSKI
419-993-2090
gsowinski@limanews.com
LIMA — Jail Administrator John Allen will never forget the pregnant woman who joked that she only committed crimes to see a doctor for free.
The woman even knew what crimes she could commit to send her to jail long enough to get the necessary care, he said.
That woman, who made the remarks while in jail five years ago, is the only inmate at the Al-len County jail who Allen remembers boldly saying she committed crimes because she couldn’t afford to go to the doctor, he said.
But Allen knows that woman is far from being the only inmate who cannot afford health care on the outside. He does not believe people commit crimes as a means to free health care but he believes people freely utilize the doctor during a jail stay.
“Since I’m here I may as well get it taken care of,” he said of the attitude he gets.
Sheriff Dan Beck said just because a person is poor doesn’t mean he or she goes out and commits crimes. “I have seen a lot of honest poor. I am not convinced that poverty drives crime. Honest peo-ple are going to be honest,” he said.
Beck knows many people who are poor but have a lot of pride and work 12- to 14-hour days to support their families, he said.
Crime is mostly driven by the drug trade, he said. Beck said most of the people in his jail are able to work, they just choose not to.
“They don’t want to work. They are poor because they choose to be poor,” he said. “It’s eas-ier to sell drugs, it’s easier to steal.
It’s easier to boost goods out of our retail establishments.”
Beck said crime has more to do with the lack of moral standards and the lack of accountabil-ity people have for doing what is right and obeying laws.
It’s also not just poor people that Beck sees in his jail. They get people from many back-grounds, he said. “We see a lot of good people at bad times in their life,” he said.
Lima Municipal Judge William Lauber said his sense is that many of the people who come before him are poor but he doesn’t have any statistics to back that up. Many of the defendants seek an attorney through the public defender’s office because they cannot afford one, he said.
Some of those who qualify for free representation have jobs but don’t make enough, he added. “Our case load covers all economic strata, educational levels, gender and almost all other classifications you want to come up with,” Lauber said.
David Adams, a retired professor of sociology at Ohio State University at Lima said crime is not only committed by the poor. Everyone commits crime in some form or another and many people, who are generally good people, have committed a crime that would put them in prison. It’s just that they have not been caught.
The type of crimes usually changes by economic classification. Poor people are more associ-ated with street crimes such as assaults and robbery. The middle class commit crimes such as embezzlement. The rich are more associated with crimes such as corporate fraud, which is the costliest of all in terms of a dollar amount, Adams said.
Poor people, however, have a higher chance of being arrested, Adams said. Middle and upper income Americans have more options available to them to avoid arrest. For example, they have more money to hire a lawyer.
Allen often sees the effects of poverty from people who end up in jail. Many of the people Allen sees in jail cannot afford health care which means the only time they may receive care for an illness or disease is when they go to jail, he said. “Most of these people who come to jail aren’t in the best of health,” Allen said.
Inmates come in the jail with diabetes, high blood pressure, sexually transmitted diseases, poor dental hygiene, pregnancy and a host of other problems. Many overall have poor health in general, Allen said.Allen also sees the strain it puts on the county in a financial sense, not to mention the need for staff members who can handle it. Some inmates want to see the doctor the minute they walk in, he said. “They will tell you by law you have to fix me. They’re not shy about telling you,” he said.
In 2004, the taxpayers footed the bill for $218,639 in medical, dental and prescription drugs for inmates in the Allen County jail. That does not include the salary of jail doctor John Biery who was paid $90,523 last year, according to records, and Judy Ellison, the fiscal manager at the sheriff’s office.
Although Allen County is able to manage the cost of inmate health care, there can be cases that create worries for Allen, his boss Sheriff Beck and county officials.
Allen remembers the expensive treatment required for Lee A. Edwards in 1997, who was in jail pending trial for the 1996 shooting death of Kevin Little.
Edwards, who suffered from aplastic anemia, a condition that affects the body’s bone mar-row, ran up nearly $30,000 in medical expenses in the two months he was jailed. County offi-cials at the time also feared he needed a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy which might cost up to $500,000, a judge said at the time.
They also were well aware that Edwards was released 18 months into a 10-year federal prison sentence in 1993 because of his medical condition. Edwards eventually pleaded to a manslaughter and robbery charge and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Today, many of the inmates at the Allen County jail seek treatment for a sexually transmit-ted disease. The expensive cases come when an inmate has AIDS and the county has to pay for the costly medicine, he said. “They know when they come here it’s free,” he said.
Allen said people who actually commit a crime to obtain health care are the exception but knows many cannot afford care on the outside so the sheriff’s office becomes a doctor’s office of sorts.
“I don’t think they deliberately commit a crime to do it. That female said she did. She said she knew exactly how much to steal in order to get a sentence to get her baby taken care of,” Allen said.
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