Life-or-Death Valentine

Though distressed over his wife’s prolonged struggle with breast cancer, Wayne Harmon knows she’s alive and still fighting today thanks to bone marrow donated by a stranger.

So when Harmon saw a sea of pink fliers posted all over his East Lake Village neighborhood in Yorba Linda about Chad Brendlinger, a local 19-year-old in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, he decided to help.

On Sunday, Valentine’s Day, Harmon joined more than 250 neighbors, friends and strangers who hoped to come to Brendlinger’s rescue, signing up as potential donors for the National Marrow Registry through the City of Hope National Medical Center.

“When you have an opportunity to give back to someone else, you’ve got to do it,” said Harmon, 61, a retired J.C. Penney executive.

The response to Brendlinger’s plight has been overwhelming. Hundreds more potential donors are expected to register at bone marrow drives planned for the next two weekends.

“What it means is that Chad has a good chance,” said his father, John, who spent the day offering thanks to donors as they streamed inside the East Lake Village Recreation Center, where the drive was held. “It brings back my faith in mankind.”

Two years ago, Brendlinger began to feel weak. He grew sickly. This was strange for a wiry 17-year-old kid addicted to weekend thrill rides on water skis, motorcycles and any other extreme adventure his parents would allow.

At first, doctors thought a sinus infection might be to blame. Then, mononucleosis, or hepatitis.

Finally, after a battery of tests, Brendlinger’s doctors found the culprit: leukemia, cancer emanating from his blood-producing bone marrow.

“It’s hard to describe,” Brendlinger, a polite and soft-spoken young man, said this weekend. “It’s been strange. It’s been hard at times.”

Brendlinger has remained upbeat throughout most of his two-year struggle. Even on Saturday, a day after being released from City of Hope following a harsh dose of chemotherapy, he was bopping around his parents’ house sporting droopy black jeans and screaming sideburns.

The most severe blow came last fall when Brendlinger’s cancer, which had been in remission, came back stronger and more deadly than ever. Chemotherapy had failed.

Doctors told the family that a bone marrow transplant offered Brendlinger his best, and perhaps only, chance to beat the cancer consuming him.

Unfortunately, none of Brendlinger’s relatives were suitable donors. Doctors then checked the 3 million volunteers already on file with the National Marrow Donor Program. Again, no match.

“My wife and I, we had to do something. We just couldn’t sit there,” John Brendlinger said. “People don’t realize leukemia is curable, if they can find a match. We need to find Chad a match, because he can be saved.”

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By coincidence, Jane Palmer was already organizing a marrow donor drive in the neighborhood. She decided to join forces with the Brendlingers when she heard about their problem.

Soon, fliers and banners explaining Brendlinger’s plight were everywhere: the local Vons put them in shopping bags; an ice cream shop and a video store posted announcements in their windows. Brendlinger’s picture was everywhere.

Carole Bush saw those fliers day after day. She never met Brendlinger or his family, but she couldn’t wait to help.

“Being a mother myself, I would be heartbroken if my child had a chance to live but they couldn’t find a donor,” said Bush, 43, a vice president of the Stroud’s home linens store chain who lives in Yorba Linda. “To me, this is the ultimate Valentine’s gift.”

There is about a 70% chance that a suitable bone marrow donor will be found for Brendlinger, and the odds will only increase as more volunteers sign up, said Charif El Masri of the donor recruitment program at City of Hope in Duarte, where Brendlinger is being treated.

“The only way Chad is going to survive is with a bone marrow transplant,” El Masri said. “We’re in a race against time.”

Brenda Ancheta of La Puente hates needles, but she put her fears aside Sunday and provided the blood sample required to register as a potential donor. She was among dozens of potential donors who filled the gurneys Sunday morning at the recreation center.

Ancheta works for John Brendlinger at Corrugated Service Orange Inc. in Fullerton and along with registering is raising money in his son’s name for the Leukemia Society of America’s marathon next month.

“I’m afraid of needles, but I have a lot of faith. I believe God made me a healthy person for a reason,” she said, pumping her fist as blood flowed out of her arm and into a pint-sized container.

Before being allowed to register as donors, volunteers must be interviewed by hospital staff to ensure that they are not considered high-risk for blood-borne diseases, including AIDS and malaria.

Volunteers are then asked to give a sample of blood, which will be tissue-typed to see if they are suitable donors to the more than 3,000 people nationwide waiting for a marrow transplant, El Masri said.

Doctors remove marrow from a suitable donor by injecting a needle into the hip bone, extracting about 5% of the marrow, El Masri said.

During the outpatient procedure, donors are put under general anesthesia, a process that poses a small risk of complication.

Those interested in becoming a bone marrow donor can call the City of Hope Medical Center at (626) 301-8385.