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Senator goes deep inside
By Ben DiPietro
himself to help a child
Associated PressSen. Avery Chumbley is usually on the asking end of donations.
This time he was the donor.
Bone marrow donated by Chumbley (D, East Maui-North Kauai) on Thursday was flown to the mainland, where doctors planned to transfuse it yesterday into an unidentified 1-year-old boy.
The senator was found to be a 1-in-4 million match with the boy, who suffers from a form of leukemia.
The bone marrow was removed from Chumbley at St. Francis Medical Center and then flown to the mainland Thursday night.
Chumbley hopes someday to meet the boy but won't get the child's name for one year under rules established by the National Bone Marrow Registry.
"All I know is it's a 12-month-old boy somewhere on the mainland," he said.
Chumbley donated marrow through a new process known as peripheral bloodstream cell donation. His blood was drawn and put into a centrifuge-like machine that collected his stem cells, which create bone marrow.
His blood, minus the stem cells, was sent back into his body through tubing in his other arm.
Chumbley said any discomfort he felt was worth the sacrifice to help a child. He said the child's pain far exceeds any inconvenience he felt from blood tests and other injections he had to endure in the week preceding the procedure.
"If you can imagine a 12-month-old baby going through chemotherapy and what it means to those parents, that is where the real sacrifice is," he said.
Chumbley volunteered as a donor in 1996 during the search for a donor match for Alana Dung and was surprised to hear he had made a perfect match.
His colleagues in the Senate presented him yesterday with a certificate of appreciation.
"Donating to an individual he may never know, may never meet, despite considerable inconvenience, pain and discomfort, that is the essence of what it means to be a humanitarian," said Sen. Andy Levin (D, Kau-South Kona).
"There were many times last session when many of our colleagues wanted Sen. Chumbley's blood," said Sen. Matt Matsunaga, referring to attempts by some senators to remove Chumbley as co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
"It's a good thing they didn't get it because a little boy on the mainland needed it much more," said Matsunaga (D, Kahala-Waialae-Palolo).
"It shows his heart really is bigger than his head."
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