Six Year Old with Leukemia needs help!

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DeniseNY

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I posted this in the Prayer Intentions forum, but wanted to post here as well so that as many people as possible see it.

The nephew of a colleague has been diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL).

He is in need of a bone marrow transplant. Here is information from the press release:

HELP SAVE COLIN FLOOD!
His father helped protect the city we love, now WE must help protect the son he loves!
(Middle Village, NY – February 18, 2012) – The tree was up and decorated and, while their parents
wrapped gifts, Colin Flood and his younger brother Brody talked excitedly about Santa’s arrival. It was the
ordinary preparations for the Christmas holidays and so when Colin began to feel sick his parents chalked
it up to a bad seasonal flu. But on December 23rd, the night before Christmas Eve, Colin was told that the
fevers, night sweats, aches and pains he’d been experiencing over the last 13 days were anything but
ordinary; they were the symptoms of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL).
Colin, who is a first grader at Our Lady of Hope Catholic School and player in his peewee basketball
league, spent Christmas receiving his first round of chemotherapy in the hospital under the lights of a
miniature tree on his windowsill. His mother Jennifer has lived every parents nightmare, watching her
normally active 6-year old have his life sidelined by this disease as he undergoes aggressive rounds of
chemotherapy, forcing him to remain in the hospital at all times. Now his doctors say that his only chance
of survival is a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, his brother is not a match and now his life depends
on a stranger.
Colin’s father Kevin Flood, a retired NYC firefighter from Engine 210 who risked his life aiding in the search
and rescue efforts after 9/11, has seen tragedy and the way it can unite a community. Now he is calling
out to the city he fought to protect, to unite once again and help him save the life of his child. “The
hardest thing as a parent is knowing there is nothing I can do to help save my son,” says Kevin, “so please,
get swabbed and give Colin a fighting chance.”

** REGISTER AS A BONE MARROW DONOR
Saturday, February 18, 2012,
09:00 AM-05:00 PM
Our Lady of Hope Catholic School
Middle Village, NY
**

If you are in the New York Area, please consider attending the event on Feb 18th. And please pass this along to any friends and family in the NY area that might be willing to help!

Everyone, please pray for Colin.

Thank you!
 
I would encourage everyone, everywhere to go become part of the marrow registry. It is now done with a mouth swab, not a needle stick and blood draw. It is a national registry, i believe, so everyone can help.
 
When I considered giving a kidney to my brother I found out I could not because I was also a diabetic.

So, can a diabetic donate bone marrow? I will have to ask my doctor. Prayers to this little boy and his parents.
 
EVERYONE should join the registry if they are medically able to do so. I have been matched twice, which is incredibly rare. Neither time I was able to donate due to the fact that the patient’s doctor decided to go with a different treatment plan. This was okay though because I was at least available to make a transplant an option for that patient. I thought about the fact that the doctor was able to go to that patient’s family and actually say, “We DO have a donor for ________.” How incredible is that to be able to be there for a person during his or her hardest times and you don’t even know the person! 🙂

To join all you need to do is submit a cheek swab. If you are asked to donate you will go on to have some bloodwork performed to check for any evidence of disease that would prevent you from donating and to do confirmatory tissue typing. If you donate you will most likely go through a non-surgical procedure called peripheral blood stem cell collection to collect the stem cells. Occasionally the older surgical method is used because there are certain diseases that benefit from a donation of the actual marrow rather than the stem cells collected in the blood stream, but it is not nearly as common as it used to be. Both methods come with some discomfort, but it is minimal, especially when you realize a few days of discomfort can save a person’s life.

I work in oncology research and I have learned a lot about hematologic malignancies. It’s a fascinating field. Transplants are not always an option, but if they are the patient needs a good donor. My hope that one day every patient will have a donor available.
 
Praying for Colin and his family

Lord give the Flood family strenght
 
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