Positivity: 8-year-old’s plight has saved lives
From Brentwood, New Hampshire, and many other places:
December 20, 2009 2:00 AM
The cancer that has riddled Jordyn Boucher’s blood since she was 15 months old is progressing.
Santa made a special trip to Brentwood last week so Jordyn’s family could celebrate Christmas before they traveled to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., where Jordyn will receive a bone marrow transplant from her father, Brian.
Jordyn’s family is praying for a Christmas miracle. But for many other cancer patients, Jordyn was their miracle.
One of them is Cary Hill, a 39-year-old father of two from China Grove, N.C.
Hill was never one to go to the doctor for anything. He fought what he thought were flu symptoms for more than a week, but on March 19, 2006, the pain was just too intense. He went to the doctor hoping for some medication to make him better. Instead, he was told he was within 24 hours of having a massive heart attack because the number of white blood cells in his body was off the charts.
Hill had acute lymphoblastic leukemia and a 15 percent chance of surviving. A stem cell transplant and chemotherapy treatments were ordered and Hill’s life changed forever.
“The doctor said it was important that this transplant happened immediately,” said Hill, now 42. “I had never been sick in my life. It was very scary.”
Nine hundred and fourteen miles north, Ned Raynolds, a Portsmouth city councilor at the time, read a story about a family living in Stratham that was holding a bone marrow drive with the hope of finding a match for their 5-year-old daughter Jordyn. A 41-year-old father of three, Raynolds reacted like many other parents.
“At the time one of my daughters was close to Jordyn’s age …; I saw the picture of Jordyn and thought, ‘that could be my daughter,’”‰” said Raynolds. “I found out, hey, that could be me.”
Raynolds was one of more than 1,000 people who became part of the Be The Match Registry of the National Marrow Donor Program because of Jordyn’s story. Many came — from throughout New England — but not one was a match. Still, at least six people who became part of the registry in February 2006 were matched with other cancer patients across the country. The six are only the people who have contacted Jordyn’s family afterwards. There are likely many more.
As it turns out, Raynolds was a perfect match for Hill. Graft-versus-host disease is a common and serious complication in which there is a reaction of the donated marrow or cells against the patient’s own tissue. But Hill just got better and better. A year later, he was given Raynolds’ contact information, if he wanted to call and say thank you.
“I told him I was 100 percent. He got real teary. I told him I really appreciated what he’d done for me. I said if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here today,” said Hill. “It seemed like we knew each other after we kept talking. He’s like a brother to me now.”
“It was an amazing feeling,” said Raynolds. “It was originally the thought of perhaps my 5-year-old being stricken with cancer and wanting other people to donate to save her. Instead, I saved another father and saved his family from losing him. That has been very meaningful.” ….
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