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Perfect Bone Marrow Match Found

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 9, 2008

Updated: 01/07/2008 09:12 pm

VALRICO - During a season renowned for its miracles, a Valrico family received the remarkable news they had been hoping to hear.

"They found a perfect match," said Phyllis Longwell, unable to contain her emotions as she spoke the words.

Her daughter, Brooke Longwell Brantley, a 33-year-old single mother of three from Valrico, has been in a life-and-death struggle after being diagnosed in 2006 with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

Brantley's only hope for survival is a bone marrow transplant. Her blood type and other information had been circulated through the National Marrow Donor Program registry three times, but the effort yielded no match.

In a last-ditch effort to save their daughter's life, Phyllis and Jim Longwell decided to take matters into their hands. They persuaded sponsors to pay for $52 bone marrow tests and hosted Florida Blood Services bone marrow drives, attracting 98 people to the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Valrico and 55 to Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon in November.

"We did it because of our daughter, but we also wanted to raise awareness about the need for bone marrow donations and, in the process, help other people," Longwell said. "Hopefully, there are now 153 more patients who can be saved because these people stepped forward to be added to the registry."

Longwell noted that donors from minority groups are especially needed.

Following the bone marrow drives, Phyllis Longwell said the entire family, along with Brantley's medical team, was on pins and needles.

"The doctors were beginning to think we weren't going to find a match," she said.

Then the phone rang.

It was a week before Christmas. Brantley and her children, Savannah, 12, Jarrett, 9, and Nathan, 7, had moved in with her parents following her diagnosis. Brantley was weak from her third round of chemotherapy.

"My husband answered the call and started crying," Phyllis Longwell said. "We were just speechless when he said the words 'perfect match.' It's so amazing. What a miracle. You couldn't ask for a better Christmas gift."

Doctors at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute wasted no time. They promptly put Brantley through a rigorous series of tests to make sure her liver, kidneys and heart can handle the transplant. The Longwells are waiting to meet with the transplant team.

The team is tentatively scheduled to begin intensive chemotherapy Sunday to eliminate all the cells in Brantley's old bone marrow so her body will accept the new marrow.

"We're so excited, but we're also tentative. It's a very difficult process that will require 30 days in the hospital," Longwell said. "Then, for the next 90 days, we have to be within 15 minutes of Moffitt."

Moffitt will provide Brantley with an apartment near the hospital, and Phyllis Longwell will serve as her daughter's caregiver.

"Everything has to be very sanitary," Longwell said. "It's going to be a very grueling time for her. She'll be quite ill and won't have much of an appetite. And she could be separated from her children for as long as eight weeks."

As for the donor, National Marrow Donor Program guidelines prevent the donor and patient from revealing their identities for a year, if at all. So there is no way of knowing whether the matching donor is someone who was tested at the bone marrow drives the Longwells organized.

Patients are told only their donor's age and gender, and donors are told only the patient's age, gender and disease. For the first year after the transplant, donors and patients may write letters anonymously through the donor program. Then, if both sign release forms, the National Marrow Donor Program will tell them how to contact each other.

"I know Brooke would love to meet and thank this person," Phyllis Longwell said.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524 or dlwhite@tampatrib.com.

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