Patient Pleads for Gift of Bone Marrow : Leukemia: L.A. attorney ‘devastated’ by potential donor’s apparent change of mind.

A Los Angeles attorney suffering from leukemia has issued a public plea to a potential bone-marrow donor who apparently has changed her mind about undergoing the procedure that could save his life.

Marc Smith, 36, says he is devastated by the potential donor’s apparent change of heart.

Smith, the father of three, has waited more than 30 days for a bone-marrow transplant at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He is prevented from knowing the potential donor’s name for privacy reasons. That’s why he has gone public with his plea.

Everything Smith knows about the potential donor is hearsay, he said, but he believes that she has failed several times to keep appointments at a donor center in an unknown city. He said he has heard that her family put pressure on her not to go through with the operation.

“She has never said no . . . (she) just doesn’t show up,” Smith said. “If we are going to lose a donor, I would like her to hear my story.”

The woman was scheduled to keep an appointment at her donor center for an examination March 2, then set up the donor procedure. But she didn’t keep the appointment.

The woman then called the next day, Smith said, and explained that she had a problem getting to the donor center and would be in the next day. However, she didn’t show up again and then missed another appointment the following day.

If the woman is afraid of the procedure, it can be explained, Smith said.

“It’s a very benign procedure. It takes only a day and can save my life. It’s a hard thing for me to understand. We would like her to come and help us out.”

Hutchinson Center officials have indicated that the woman never formally agreed to be a donor, although she was on an official bone-marrow registry.

Smith came to the center in January to undergo an autologous transplant that uses his own bone marrow. But he learned that a donor matching his bone marrow had been found through a computer matching service.

After learning of the match, he moved into an isolation room Feb. 5.

Without the transplant from the donor, his chances of survival grow dimmer each day, he said.

“My condition has deteriorated,” Smith said. “I’ve lost all my cancer-fighting cells,” adding that his white and red blood cell counts are low.