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Student hopes story inspires marrow donors
(248) 901-2503
By Wayne Peal
Community Editor
Portia Dave could barely remember ever having a cold. "I was never sick, I wasn't even allergic to anything," the Southfield teenager said.
That's why the news last March that she had aplastic anemia - a potentially fatal disease caused when one's bone marrow stops making enough blood cells - was such a shock.
"I think my friends were even more shocked than I was," the Southfield High School senior said.
With treatment, her health has improved dramatically.
"She's back to school and she'll be graduating this spring," said her grandmother, Myrtle Norman.
Dave is indeed getting on with her life and she hopes to attend Michigan State University next fall.
But she's still in need of a bone marrow match.
That's why she's the student ambassador for this year's Southfield Community Blood and Bone Marrow Drive, to be held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Southfield Pavilion.
While blood is badly needed, the need for bone marrow donors is even greater, especially among African-Americans and members of other minority groups.
At the drive, donors will have the option of giving blood, signing up for the National Marrow Donor program, or doing both.
Dave's message is that you can never tell when you or a loved one might need a match of their own.
"My friends are a little too young to sign up, but I'll be there to encourage people," she said.
Potential marrow donors will give a blood sample and sign up for a national list used by physicians and health professionals to find a match.
This is the third year the city has held such a drive.
wpeal@oe.homecomm.net
Two home-bound students ready to graduate
May 26, 2005 - Thousands of students are graduating all over Central Texas and for two local high school seniors who didn't think they'd live to see graduation day, the day means so much more.
It was the most exciting shopping trip of Dallas Lassiter's life when he went looking for a white shirt to wear to his high school graduation.
"I want to jump for joy. I want to cry,” he says. “I've got mixed feelings. I don't even know how I'm going to handle practice tomorrow."
It's a day Dallas and his family didn't know if he'd live to see. Dallas suffers from aplastic anemia, a life-threatening blood disease that strips a person of their immune system. It means he couldn't go to school.
“With my disease, I wasn't sure I was going to graduate."
"I wasn't sure he was going to make it this far,” his mother Jane says. So she says it’s a “Fantastic day."
It's a story all too familiar to Robert Smith. For two years, he battled bone cancer. He's now in remission.
"It's very good, very cool,” he says. “I wasn't expecting to graduate this year."
And he wasn't expecting to go to his prom, but he did that, too. Both teens took part in Midway ISD's home-bound program that brings teachers into the home when the students are too sick to come to school. There are currently four students in the Midway ISD home-bound program.
"I had a great teacher who pulled me through everything," Dallas says.
"It's a really good curriculum,” Jane says. “They still do the same things, learn the same things that they would have in high school."
But the most important lesson the high school students learned wasn't in the classroom.
Dallas says, "I don't take life for granted anymore."
"Instead of thinking about me, I think about others," Robert says.
And that's a lesson they say their glad they learned.
Both Dallas and Robert will be attending MCC in the fall. They haven't met yet, but are looking forward to seeing each other Friday night at Midway High's commencement.
STORY BY DAWNICA JACKSON
Midwest couple to donate platelets in Burlington
July 5, 2007 - A husband and wife team from Kansas who are traveling the U.S. to donate platelets in all 36 American Red Cross Blood Regions will make stop in Burlington next week, said local Red Cross officials
Jim and Linda Parker will donate their platelets through a process called apheresis at the Burlington Red Cross Donor Center on July 9. The Parkers, traveling in a minivan whose side reads "Donating Across America," say they are continuing where they left off two years ago, picking up blood donations in the states they did not get to visit during their first cross-country trip.
The portion of blood which helps control excessive blood loss, platelets are often needed by cancer patients during treatment, and by patients with aplastic anemia.
For more information about becomeing a platelet donor, or to donate blood, call the American Red Cross Blood Services at (802) 658-6400 or 1-800-GIVE-LIFE.
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