McFadden buoyed by stem cell donation

Posted by rob on July 25, 2005 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

He doesn’t try to hide the emotion. The excitement for this day has been building inside him for more than a year.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Adam McFadden said Friday before departing for Chicago. “I’m so happy. Every time I think about it, I’m almost in tears.”

In Chicago, the Rochester city councilman will meet an 18-year-old named Lamar Adams. McFadden saved Adams’ life last year, or as McFadden says, extended it, by donating his blood stem cells.

Most patients must search for a match from an unrelated donor. There are 5.5 million potential donors on the National Marrow Donor Registry, resulting in 20,000 transplants since 1987. A match is more likely among people of the same heritage, the program’s Pat Thompson said, explaining why it’s trying to attract minority donors. About 450,000 potential donors are African American.

McFadden signed up five years ago Friday at a recruitment drive at James Madison High School of Excellence. A friend’s son had leukemia, but McFadden wasn’t a match.

Then, in late fall 2003 and more than 300 miles away in the Bronx, Adams went for a physical so he could play high school basketball and was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

“I was scared a little,” Adams said. “But I wasn’t thinking how bad it was going to get.”

A month or so later, he was matched to McFadden, who began a pre-donation drug regimen that boosted his white blood cell count. He said it made his bones hurt so even a handshake was painful.

Under program rules, donor and recipient must remain anonymous for at least a year. McFadden said he thought about it every day, then started making inquiries when the year was up in March.

Eleven days ago, he got the call. The donor program would pay their way to the TriCaucus Minority Health Summit this weekend at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

“I don’t know what to say, still,” Adams said from Chicago, adding he feels 100 percent but remains on medication.

As for McFadden: “I’m just probably going to hug the kid and probably cry a little bit, I’m not going to lie. It’s not every day that you know you can sacrifice a small piece of yourself to help someone live. I was given that chance.”

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