Bone-marrow drive set for Vilonia School Board member
VILONIA — Jerry Roberts of Vilonia has been battling a blood disease for years, and he said one hope of a cure is a bone-marrow transplant.
A bone-marrow drive is scheduled from 1-6 p.m. Oct. 12 at the Vilonia High School cafeteria. The goal is to test 1,000 people and find a match for Roberts, said Carla Mitchell Atkinson, who is helping organize the drive.
“This is the only option,” Atkinson said. “It has to be a 100 percent match.”
“My brother and sister didn’t qualify — they weren’t a good match,” Roberts said.
The test to be a donor is simple and painless, Atkinson said. It consists of two long-stemmed cotton applicators that are used to swab inside each cheek for 30 seconds. Those who donate must be in the age range of 18 to 55 years old. The swabs will be mailed by those conducting the drive, Atkinson said.
The 56-year-old Roberts said he was diagnosed in May 2007 in the “early stages of blood disorder.” In February 2008, results of tests at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas showed he had myelofibrosis. A doctor told him he’d only live two or three years.
“I s aid, ‘ You don’t k n ow my God and old Jerry,’” Roberts said.
According to the Mayo Clinic, myelofibrosis is “an uncommon type of chronic leukemia — a cancer that affects the blood-forming tissues in the body. The result is extensive scarring in your bone marrow, leading to severe anemia, weakness, fatigue and, often, an enlarged spleen and liver.”
Roberts said he has 67 percent “blasts,” or immature blood cells, in his bone marrow.
“You want it zero,” Roberts said. “According to my doctor in Houston, I shouldn’t be walking around,” he said. “This [bone-marrow transplant] is probably going to be the ultimate … one of my last options. The blasts can’t get much higher.”
Roberts said he has undergone 296 intravenous-chemotherapy treatments, and more are scheduled.
He said he is touched that friends have organized a bone-marrow drive.
“It makes me feel good. Like I told them all along, I’m getting older. I’m past 55. If they don’t match me, there might be some kid that would benefit,” he said. “There wouldn’t be a better feeling than to save a life. I wish I could do it.”
Roberts has been on the Vilonia School District’s board of education for 25 years, and rarely has he missed a meeting. He was hospitalized last week and was released too late to attend a special meeting, he said.
“That’s probably the first one I’ve missed in 20 years,” he said.
Also participating in the bone-marrow drive will be Vilonia cheerleaders, football players, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the BETA Club, and a group of business leaders and parents in the community, as well as political speakers, Atkinson said. Other activities will include gospel singing, a Primary School Melodies performance and a silent auction. There will be an area where children can be left while their parents are being tested to be bone-marrow donors.
Volunteers are also needed to help with the event. For more information, contact Atkinson at (501) 5144001 or Glenda Gore at (870) 261-2669. More information about being a donor can be found at deletebloodcancer.org.
“Get swabbed, and you might save a life,” Roberts said.