FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Among volunteers in Hawaii working yesterday on behalf of 5-year-old Justice Josephine Taitague, of Guam, were, from left, Joyce Yoshino, Jan Nagahiro and Roy Yonashiro.
Guam displayed its aloha spirit -- "hafa adai" -- to the Hawaii Bone Marrow Registry with 3,409 donors showing up last weekend to try to save a 5-year-old child's life, said Roy Yonashiro, donor recruitment coordinator. Guam marrow drive
sends off samples
By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.comYonashiro, Dr. Randal Wada, medical director, and two other staff members from the St. Francis Medical Center Registry returned earlier this week from a week-long humanitarian mission to Guam.
Dr. Thomas Shieh, an obstetrician-gynecologist on Guam, asked the Hawaii Registry for help to try to save the life of Justice Josephine Taitague. The child is now at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital in California with T-cell, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, now in the fourth stage.
"Her blood count is down to zero," Yonashiro said. "She has constant blood transfusions." She has a 40 percent chance of living with a transplant; without it, she is expected to live only about four to six months, he said.
The National Marrow Donor Program funded the special "Drive for Justice," the first bone marrow donor drive held on Guam.
Most donors were Pacific islanders, which enhances chances of finding a match for Justice, who is part Chamorro and part Filipino, he said.
With Pacific islanders comprising only 0.1 percent of people in the national registry, he said: "We were aiming to build the Pacific islander donor files in the national program. We surpassed our goals.
"The people of Guam understand that it's for anybody," he added, pointing out others besides Justice may benefit from the donors. "Most of them said, 'This can happen to my child. I want to help.'"
Yonashiro said the first day of the drive, last Saturday, was "a little slow," with 914 donors. Sunday, 1,096 people showed up to give blood samples at a shopping mall. Then the Hawaii team packed up and went to the little girl's town of Merizo at a pastor's request, Yonashiro said.
"It just clicked: 'Maybe we should go where she's from. All her cousins, aunties and uncles live there. They don't have cars, so let's drive out there.'"
He said they recruited 137 donors in Merizo, returning to town about 10 p.m., and finished the drive with 1,262 donors on Monday.
Back at St. Francis Hospital Tuesday, the team packed up the blood samples and consent forms for tissue typing and sent them by Federal Express to the National Marrow Donor Program in Minneapolis, Minn.
Tissue typing analysis usually takes six to eight weeks, but the program is expediting it in search of a match for Justice, Yonashiro said.
