Steps To-Marrow
by Danny Fisher
This from a friend of a friend:
Jada Bascom was born on April 16, 2007 at Holy Family Hospital in Spokane, WA, two hours after her birth a nurse came in and swept Jada away. We later learned that a nurse noticed small red dots on Jada’s skin, a sign that her blood was not clotting. This nurse was the first in a long line of people who were responsible for saving our Jada’s life. Jada had hundreds of blood transfusions, an amazing medical team at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital and Seattle Children’s Hospital, Difibritide sent on a compassionate use basis from a pharmaceutical company in Italy, prayers from people of a myriad of faiths…And a bone marrow donor.
Jada’s illness turned her families lives upside down. Her mother had expected to spend time at home with the new baby and then return to work after 6 weeks. Instead, Jada’s family moved in with her Grandparents. The family pulled together everyone taking shifts at the hospital to be sure there was someone with Jada 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Family, friends, co-worker’s, our small community of Deer Park, churches, Zen centers, cancer organizations all stepped forward to help with the fundraising necessary to keep our family going.
On March 7, 2008, Jada came home from Seattle in remission 5 months after her bone marrow transplant…her battle with leukemia was not over. Her body was now trying to integrate with the donor cells and vice versa. She had several bouts with graft vs. host disease. In February of 2009, the doctors again began slowly to decrease the drugs suppressing Jada’s immune system. Today, Jada is almost weaned from the immune suppressant drugs. She is on target developmentally for a two year old. She loves the water. She enjoys having books read to her. Her favorite book is “Green Eggs and Ham.” Her best friend is Alivia. Her favorite movie is “Finding Nemo.” Her favorite song is “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” She smiles and laughs a lot and is a very loving child.
In order to express our gratitude to the innumerable people it took to save Jada’s life and to support our family through this crisis we began the Jada Bascom Foundation. The foundation is sponsoring Steps To-Marrow, in which, Jada’s grandmother, Jeana Moore, will be walking from Seattle to Los Angeles and Los Angeles to New York City, to raise awareness around the need for bone marrow donors and to recruit potential bone marrow donors for the National Bone Marrow Registry. We hope that through our efforts many people will find their match just like Jada did.
Please consider getting involved at http://www.stepstomarrow.com.
