CYPRESS : Community Funds Marrow Transplant

Desmon Benavidez soon will receive a bone marrow transplant, thanks to his friends and neighbors who raised money to help cover the costs of the procedure.

Benavidez, who has leukemia, is scheduled for the bone marrow transplant within three weeks at UCLA Medical Center. His doctors said the operation is his only chance for survival, Benavidez’s wife, Julie, said.

Because her 40-year-old husband’s health insurance would not cover the cost of testing possible donors, people in his Cypress neighborhood held silent auctions and dinners in December and raised about $20,000--the estimated cost of using a national registry to try to locate a match. (The operation itself is covered by insurance.)

But within weeks, the registry found a donor in Europe. Because the search succeeded more quickly than expected and cost only $5,000, friends said they would give the rest of the money to the Benavidez family for other medical expenses.

“If, by chance, the money is not needed, then we’ll donate it to whatever charitable organization the family would like,” said Denise Rafelson, a friend who helped organize the fund-raisers.

Chances for a successful transplant operation are greater now than they would be months from now, doctors told the Benavidezes. Had it not been for the community’s quick fund-raising action, Desmon Benavidez said, it would have taken several months to gather the money himself.

“What incredible support,” Benavidez said about his neighbors and friends Monday from his hospital bed. “They are just phenomenal. It was just a great thing they did for me--like providing me an insurance policy.”

Benavidez, who is now undergoing a second round of chemotherapy at Pioneer Hospital in Artesia, said he will be writing “thank-you” notes to everyone.

Julie Benavidez described her husband’s cancer as a “nightmare” but said that the family’s spirits shot up when their friends helped them. “They’re just really nice people. What they did was awe-inspiring and it makes our pain a little easier to cope with,” she said.

The Benavidez family, including sons Zac, 14, and Alex, 13, and daughter Michelle, 12, has lived in Cypress for eight years.

Jo Ann Renken, a friend who helped organize an auction for Benavidez last month, said she did it because “the man is a good man, and to not have the chance for the transplant would have been a tremendous injustice. We asked for the community’s support and people were extremely generous. It was a fabulous, heart-warming feeling.”