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A gift of life gives boy, donor a reason to party
BY SOFIA KOSMETATOS
Star-Ledger Staff
June 19, 2005 - For a year after his bone marrow transplant, Austin McNally and his family did not know who saved his life.
And Cory Rose didn't know much about the person he helped, other than it was a boy with aplastic anemia, a noncontagious disease that occurs when the bone marrow stops making enough healthy blood cells.
They finally met yesterday, 16 months after the transplant, at the McNally home in Piscataway.
Rose flew in from Ohio with his dad, Donald Rose, and his grandmother, Dolly Rose, for a party that celebrated both Austin's recovery and his 12th birthday on Friday. The McNallys gave Cory Rose, now 22, a hero's welcome and several teary-eyed hugs at the backyard celebration.
"This party really wouldn't be going on without him, let's face it," said Jayne McNally, Austin's mother. "He's a godsend," said Rick McNally, Austin's father.
Austin started showing symptoms of his illness -- bruising easy and often -- more than two years ago, in January 2003. "He looked like a battered child," said Rick McNally.
But neither Austin nor his parents realized how serious his illness was until seeing a doctor in April 2003. Blood tests revealed Austin's platelet count was very low. But doctors did not diagnose Austin until September 2003 , after numerous tests and transfusions.
His diagnosis, a mild case of aplastic anemia, turned severe later that fall, when his bone marrow stopped making blood, and several treatments failed to work.
"He was really, really bad," constantly in and out of the hospital and unable to attend school, said Rick McNally. "Everything failed. There was no other option but to have a donor," he said.
But because Austin and his sister, Madison, 9, are adopted, neither she nor his parents were genetic matches.
Dylan McNeill, 14, Austin's biological brother, who lives in South Brunswick and is in contact with his brother, was a better match, but still not the best one.
Rose registered for the National Marrow Donor Program a few years ago at a blood drive for an uncle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He wasn't a match for his uncle, who has since passed away.
When Rose got a call from the American Red Cross telling him that he was a match for Austin, Rose didn't hesitate.
"It didn't really matter who it was," he said, just that he was able to help somebody.
Giving marrow didn't hurt, except for a few aches and pains in his hip for about a week after the procedure, which took just a few hours.
But both Rose and his father said the donation was a pivotal moment in the then-20-year-old's life.
About a year before the transplant, Rose dropped out of college and was hanging with the wrong crowd and doing drugs. Afterward, "he went back to the old Cory," said Donald Rose.
Cory Rose is heading to boot camp in July, after which he plans to study lithography, a form of printing,for the Navy.
"He saved my life and I saved his," said Austin, who was surrounded yesterday by school friends, family, neighbors, and other children he met in his many trips to the hospital.
Libardo Gallego, Madison's soccer coach, also was there.
When Austin was in the hospital with his mother, Gallego's wife, Alba, used to pick up Austin's sister, Madison, from school along with Gallego's daughter, Darcy.
"We were there for them and they trusted us to take Madison home," he said.
Austin has come a long way since the transplant. He finally began making his own blood in September 2004 , and is recovering from transplant rejection.
He's finishing the sixth grade this week, and is looking forward to spending most of the summer at the family's lakeside summer house near Milford, Pa.
His the recovery is ongoing, and involves hours of physical therapy weekly, 20 pills daily and biweekly doctor visits.
Despite the regimen, Jayne McNally said her son's recovery has left her with a new outlook on life.
"You realize how much you really do have and how much other things don't matter," she said.
Kailee to head home for the holidays
Kailee Wells
12/09/2005 - ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - After 40 days confined to a hospital room, an eight-year-old Albuquerque girl battling a rare blood disease is going home for the holidays.
Kailee Wells, who became ill with severe aplastic anemia three years ago, has been at the Children? Hospital of Wisconsin since November Seventh, when she underwent a second marrow transplant.
Thursday, doctors said Kailee could go home. Her parents, Linda and Owen Wells, moved to Milwaukee a year ago this month to be close to their daughter? doctors.
Kailee will need to go to the hospital clinic every other day for checkups, but Owen Wells says going home will be good for the family? spirits.
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