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Make-A-Wish Telethon
Thousands help kids with wishes
The 15th annual event raises money to fulfill seriously ill children’s wishes. This year, the telethon raised more than $357,000.
By STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@leader.net
WILKES-BARRE – April 11, 2005 - Thousands of people across northeastern and central Pennsylvania opened their hearts and their wallets Sunday to help grant the wishes of dozens of children with life-threatening illnesses from our area.
Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northeastern Pennsylvania had its 15th annual telethon at the Wyoming Valley Mall, and area businesses, families and individuals pitched in to raise more than $357,000.
The telethon was broadcast live by WBRE-TV, whose on-air personalities teamed up with more than 500 volunteers to help make the event a success, said Joe Milazzo, chairman of the foundation’s board of directors.
Those who stopped by the mall or watched the telethon on TV heard the stories of some of the children who had their wishes granted, kids such as 5-year-old Kiernan Harman of Bloomsburg.
Kiernan’s mom, Nichole, explained that her son was diagnosed with aplastic anemia – a disease in which the body’s immune system destroys the bone marrow – in January 2004. The only cure is a bone marrow transplant, but the marrow of his siblings isn’t compatible, she said.
“Generally, the survival rate is 25 percent for non-sibling matches,” Nichole Harman said.
Kiernan is taking medication to put the disease into remission. And for a little boy fighting for his life, meeting his cartoon hero made that fight a little easier. Make-A-Wish sent Kiernan, his parents and three siblings to Walt Disney World in December.
Meeting “Spiderman … and Mickey Mouse,” was the favorite part of his trip, Kiernan said.
“(The trip) lifted his spirits and enabled us to not focus on the hospital or doctor appointments. It let him be a kid again,” Nichole Harman said.
PaviElle Miller, 16, of Berwick, had her lifelong dream fulfilled in 2003 – five years after an 8-pound tumor threatened to take her life.
The tumor was discovered after PaviElle, whom her mother described as “a little brute” at age 9, had a fight at school and a little boy kicked her. Doctors removed a tumor “the size of a regulation football” that was wrapped around her kidney.
Later this year, PaviElle will be considered officially “cured” of her cancer if it remains in remission. She’s grateful to doctors at Janet Weis Children’s Hospital at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, and to Make-A-Wish for enabling her to see places such as Universal Studios, Disneyland, San Francisco and San Diego.
“It was awesome. It was the best experience I ever had.”
Milazzo said each wish costs an average of $5,000 to fulfill, and the foundation is able to fulfill an average of 130 to 150 wishes each year. He noted that all money raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania stays here, except for a nominal fee paid to the national Make-A-Wish Foundation so the regional organization has access to national network resources.
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To help make the wish of a child with a life-threatening illness come true, call 800-480-9474 to make a donation by credit card or to get the address for sending a check.
Local family hit hard by hike's cause
By JANELLE RUCKER
Gazette Staff Writer
Roberta Magill was excited when she heard Robin Grapa and her mother, Patty Laatsch, were coming through Ross County on their hike across America to benefit aplastic anemia and other bone marrow diseases. She can relate to the need.
Twenty years ago, Magill's son, Bret, died from a genetic form of aplastic anemia known as Fanconi anemia, at age 27.
"It's a devastating disease," she said. Most people afflicted with Fanconi don't live past their teen years, Roberta said.
When Bret was diagnosed at 13, he received a splenectomy which raised his blood count to almost normal, Roberta said.
It wasn't until he reached his late 20s that Bret started having problems again and needed a blood marrow transplant. He died before receiving one. Roberta had four children, of which Bret was the youngest.
When both parents carry a recessive gene for the disease, as Roberta and her husband, Glenn, do, there's a one in four chance one of their children will have the disease, she said.
"That hit us right on the button," she said. "You don't know that you're carrying genes like that unless something happens."
After Bret's death, Roberta got involved in aplastic anemia organizations, trying to raise money and awareness about the disease.
"It's very difficult to raise funds for a disease that hardly anybody knows anything about," she said.
For years, Roberta has served on the board of the local Red Cross, working to recruit blood donors.
"If anybody wants to help, that's how they can do it," said Roberta, who has donated about 18 gallons.
Though more needs to be known, progress has been made in treatments for the disease, including improved techniques for bone marrow transplants.
"Fanconi patients are living longer with advanced drug therapy," Roberta said. "But it's still a potentially fatal disease."
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