Marrow Programs Get Major Response to Appeal by Carew

More than 17,500 callers have flooded the National Marrow Donor Program in response to former Angel star Rod Carew’s emotional appeal last month for bone marrow donors who may save the life of his teenage daughter or other cancer patients.

All of the callers--nearly six times the usual monthly tally--have mentioned 18-year-old Michelle Carew, who is being treated for a potentially fatal form of leukemia at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, said Bonnie Martin, spokeswoman for the Minneapolis-based donor program.

The response is one of the biggest ever for the 9-year-old donor program, eclipsed perhaps only by the reaction to a 1993 prime-time TV special on the life of Anissa Ayala, the San Gabriel Valley teenager with leukemia whose parents conceived a child in a successful attempt to find her a bone marrow match.

Martin lauded the Carew family for making an appeal on behalf of more than 2,000 people who are waiting for bone marrow transplants. Carew, who played with the Angels for seven years and is now the team’s batting coach, has emerged as a leading spokesman for the donor program.

“What they’re doing is fabulous,” Martin said Tuesday. “They’re so unselfish. This family is saying, ‘Not just for our daughter, but for other people.’ ”

The outpouring has remained steady since Nov. 6, when Hall of Famer Carew had a news conference to encourage volunteers to donate two tablespoons of blood for tests to determine whether their tissue matches anyone awaiting a transplant. The surge of responses after someone’s plight is publicized on TV usually doesn’t last long, Martin said.

“Because it’s television, it’s one big hit, and it trickles off over a few days,” Martin said. “This [onslaught] has been absolutely wonderful.”

At Children’s Hospital, officials set up voice-mail boxes to handle the hundreds of calls in response to Carew’s appeal, spokeswoman Andrea Pronk said. The hospital’s media relations staff also has handled dozens of calls from CNN, NBC’s “Today Show” and others, she said.

Tuesday, as the family awaited Michelle’s scheduled surgery, her older sister Charryse Carew, 22, said the family was buoyed by the overwhelming response. “It really shows how people who don’t even know her care so much. . . . It’s really cool.”

So far, the Carew family has helped coordinate three testing drives for potential bone marrow donors that have drawn nearly 900 people. No matches have been found yet, but results from the latest drive on Sunday will not be available for a couple of weeks.

More than 1.8 million donors are listed in the National Marrow Donor Program, but none match Michelle’s type. Bone marrow donors usually are of the same race as the recipient. Because Michelle is racially mixed--her father is West Indian and Panamanian, and her mother is white--finding a match is expected to be difficult.

Meanwhile, Michelle remains in critical condition, hooked up to an oxygen machine and intravenous tubes.

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Donor Deluge

Calls to the National Bone Marrow Program have rocketed since former baseball star Rod Carew held a news conference at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, making an emotional appeal for bone marrow donors for his daughter, Michelle, and other cancer patients.

* Normal average monthly calls: 3,000

* Monthly average since Nov. 6: 17,500

WHERE TO CALL FOR DONOR INFORMATION

* National Bone Marrow Donor Program: (800) MARROW2

* American Red Cross: (800) 843-2949, ext. 4594

Sources: American Red Cross, National Bone Marrow Donor Program; Researched by RENEE TAWA / Los Angeles Times