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She still dreams of teaching

By Ed Grisamore
Telegraph Staff Columnist

Feb. 18, 2005 - When she was a little girl, Kimberly Chambers would pretend she was a teacher. She would place her dolls in front of a blackboard. She would hand out papers. If one of her students got out of line, she kept a large, wooden spoon within arm's reach.

So it came as no surprise when she announced she was going to be a teacher. Oh, she changed her mind a few times. Once, she said she was going to become a professional wrestler. Everyone knew that was just a fleeting fancy. She was born to teach.

Kimberly is now 23 and as enthusiastic as ever about being an educator. Her career is on hold right now, though. Last April, she was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a cancer of blood-forming tissues of the bone marrow. Kimberly treats it as a bump in the road, not a road block.

"I've only seen her cry twice in the last nine months," said her mother, Dawn Walling. "This is her way. She'll get through it, have one more year of school and then become a teacher."

At the beginning of her senior year of high school in 1999, Kimberly took a child care class at Houston County High School. Early in the semester, she experienced a defining moment that convinced her teaching was her life's calling.

"There was a little boy named Tyler in the class," she said. "He cried the whole time."

On the day she was responsible for one of the activities, she chose to blow bubbles. The other children huddled around her, but Tyler remained on the opposite side of the room. Suddenly, he stopped crying and came toward her. The other children were shocked.

"He had the biggest, bluest eyes I've ever seen," she said.

It was an affirmation. She knew she would become a teacher.

Her dream was reaffirmed when she did student teaching while at Macon State College and Georgia State University in Atlanta.

She taught in several poor schools in run-down neighborhoods. She saw the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of children.

The classroom kept her in its grasp, even as she began the biggest battle of her life.

Her doctor broke the news to her on April 9, one week before her 23rd birthday. It was Good Friday. By Monday, she was admitted to the hospital. She had to cancel a vacation trip to Destin, Fla.

The months that followed were a succession of doctors, hospitals and needles. A bone marrow match was located, and she successfully had surgery in September.

"I still have good days and bad days," she said. The leukemia is now in remission.

She said her illness has brought her family closer together. (Her parents are divorced.) Her boyfriend, Shawn Sullivan, and her sister, Kandi, a senior at Houston County High School, have been right there by her side.

The VICA business club at Houston County High is selling magnetic car ribbons as a fund-raiser to increase awareness of bone marrow donors. A bone marrow drive is planned for April at the school.

In the meantime, Kimberly keeps the faith that one day she'll have a classroom of her own.

Man in desperate search for bone marrow donor

Te Waiora Waetford's survival lies in his ethnicity.

30 May 2005 - Mr Waetford, who turns 21 on Wednesday, is part Cook Island Maori and part New Zealand Maori and was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in December 2002.

He is desperately seeking a suitable bone marrow donor but as blood tissue type is directly related to a person's race that person needs to be a Polynesian.

There is a shortage of Polynesians on the New Zealand Bone Marrow Donor Registry and none of his family members has provided a match.

Registry executive officer Raewyn Fisher said only 6000 Polynesians were on the registry and given that only one donor in 1000 will be a match they wanted to enrol more as donors.

A patient with European ancestry can usually find a fully matched donor from among the 7.5 million European donors worldwide.

Hamilton woman Susan Hayworth, whose son Ross died of leukemia last September, is trying to kick-start a campaign to encourage Polynesian bone marrow donors and in the process hopefully find a match for Mr Waetford.

AdvertisementAdvertisement"It's not much harder than giving blood and will give those with leukemia a chance," Mrs Hayworth said.

Ross Hayworth received stem cells in bone marrow from his sister Fiona as a last attempt to cure him but the transplant didn't work.

Fiona Hayworth has continued volunteer cancer work and is a co-presenter - along with Mr Waetford - on CanTeeners on Air, a half-hour show on community radio each week.

Mrs Hayworth said the two had grown very close in their fight against a common "enemy".

Mr Waetford, a former Melville High School, Hamilton, head boy, is in Waikato Hospital undergoing chemotherapy.

He is hopeful a suitable donor will be found.

"Physically, it (the treatment) takes it out of me but I have to keep my spirit up and be positive that I will get better," he said.

Donors must be 18 to 50 years old, and in good health, willing to fill in the blood donor declaration form at the NZ Blood Service, and to answer some questions about their medical history, willing to give a unit of blood, and to have a blood test to determine their tissue type.

About LEUKINE

LEUKINE, a man-made form of a naturally occurring growth factor that helps fight infection and disease in appropriate patients by enhancing cells of the immune system, was approved in the United States in 1991, and is marketed by Berlex, Inc.

LEUKINE is the only growth factor approved in the United States for use following induction chemotherapy in older adults with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) to shorten the time to neutrophil recovery and reduce the incidence of severe and life-threatening infections and infections resulting in death.

LEUKINE has also been approved in the U.S. for use in four additional indications: myeloid reconstitution following allogeneic and autologous bone marrow transplantation (BMT), peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) mobilization and subsequent myeloid reconstitution in patients undergoing PBSC transplantation, and bone marrow transplantation failure or engraftment delay. LEUKINE has been administered to more than 300,000 patients.

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