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Girl Gets Second Chance at Transplant; Bone Marrow Donor Found for 8- Year-Old After Failed Surgery

Posted on: Saturday, 17 September 2005, 15:00 CDT

In two to four weeks, Children's Hospital of Wisconsin expects to receive a six-pack-size cooler from China containing bone marrow, a commodity that means the world to an 8-year-old girl with a rare and potentially deadly disease.

Nearly four years after Kailee Wells was first diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a bone marrow failure syndrome that caused high fevers and gushing nosebleeds, she and her parents learned that a perfectly matched bone marrow donor has been found in her native land, China. The donor is a young man.

"It is exciting cooperation," said David A. Margolis, a physician at Children's Hospital who is coordinating Kailee's treatment. "It is humanity coming together to help a child."

Linda and Owen Wells adopted Kailee from China after her birth mother left her at an orphanage in Hunan Province. This week, the family had seven suitcases packed for a return trip to China in what had become a marathon search for a donor. The Wellses hoped to boost the bone marrow registry in China and to find clues that would lead them to Kailee's birth parents.

"We would have been on a plane to Beijing right now," Owen Wells said Friday during an interview at the hospital.

Instead, the family is now preparing for what they hope will be the end of a long ordeal.

"There's nothing more important than this sweet girl," Wells said during a news conference.

"Now we have everything we need: a perfect match for non-related bone marrow donor. . . . Now, in Kailee's words, I will be rid of my stupid aplastic anemia.' "

Kailee's illness wasn't discovered until she developed a fever of 105 degrees on the night of her fifth birthday. The family then lived in Albuquerque, N.M.

Aplastic anemia remains uncommon; about 1,000 new cases are discovered each year. While many are cured, Kailee has a severe form of the disease and needs a bone marrow transplant.

Moved to Milwaukee

The family moved to the Milwaukee area so Kailee could be treated by Margolis, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin and one of the world's leading authorities on aplastic anemia. Kailee has been going to Atwater School in Shorewood, where she is in the third grade.

Lately, Kailee's symptoms had worsened.

"She gets paler. She runs out of steam," Owen Wells said.

Her inability to produce healthy blood left her unable to fight off infections. Doctors have given her transfusions of platelets, but the transfusions, which were at one point needed only once a month or once every two months, recently have had to come every seven to 10 days.

In January, Kailee went through a bone marrow transplant that failed.

This time, however, the donor shares Kailee's DNA sequence at key proteins, making him a perfect match.

Once the bone marrow arrives, the transplant is expected to take about five hours. Kailee will remain in the hospital four to six weeks. Doctors should have a good understanding of the transplant's success after 100 days, but Margolis stressed, "It's a lifelong journey, and side effects can occur."

If successful, the transplant will mean "she can be a kid again," Owen Wells said. "She won't get tired and worn out. She'll be able to live a long and normal life."

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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