NCO's marrow donation saves brother's life - Airman's World - Senior Master Sgt. Clint Bateman

Airman, March, 2003 by Jason Tudor

SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany -- When Senior Master Sgt. Clint Bateman discovered his brother Jeff was dying of what was believed an incurable type of cancer, donating marrow wasn't a choice.

It was a necessity.

"I thought he was going to die," recalled the air traffic controller assigned to the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. "There was no hesitation. I just wanted to make [the transplant] happen."

After a routine physical for a job in July 2000, Jeff Bateman discovered he had chronic myelogenous leukemia -- also called chronic granulocytic leukemia or CML. It's a disease in which too many white blood cells are made in the bone marrow.

Within a month, the Air Force worked with Clint, who was stationed at Kunsan Air Base, Korea, at the time. It got him to Seoul to have blood drawn and start the donor-matching process.

"You hear about treatments for that kind of leukemia, but mostly you hear about people dying," he said. "But we didn't panic. He's my brother."

However, as the months progressed in determining if Clint would be a match, Jeff started to slip, and, by August 2001, he was taking a cocktail of chemotherapy medications to keep him alive.

As it turned out, Clint wasn't a complete match -- but close enough. By October2001, doctors gave the transplant a green light. Clint flew to Florida to start his portion of the process to remove bone marrow for his brother. Part of that process included injections of a drug called Neupogen. Unfortunately, those had to be injected through his belly.

As the days grew into hours before the transplant, Clint, who's the older brother, reflected on the relationship the two had.

"We had always been close growing up in Florida, fishing, hunting and carrying on like most brothers do," he said.

But something always lingered in the back of Clint's mind -- the 50 percent mortality rate. Would the process work? He kept faith

"There was always doubt. I said a lot of prayers," he recalled.

After some initial complications, the four-and-a-half-hour operation at the Moffitt Cancer Center worked. Soon after, doctors declared Jeff 99 percent free of the disease. But both knew of the consequences if the transplant failed.

"I was the only way he could have survived, regardless of how much medication they kept giving him," Clint said.

Clint, a 39-year-old father of three girls, said he recovered slowly after the operation. His follow-up included daily visits at MacDill Air Force Base to make sure his body recovered. Clint credits the power of prayer and excellent medical work for keeping them both healthy.

Admittedly, he added, marrow donation is a painful process, and he offered some advice for those considering the operation.

"Get in contact with a doctor as soon as you consider it," he said. "It's a painful process, including the recovery. Prepare yourself for what's ahead."

Now what's ahead for the twosome is a lifetime of friendship, and the older brother couldn't be happier.

"There's always hope," Clint concluded. "There was always a lot of hope there."

RELATED ARTICLE: Bone marrow, leukemia facts

Bone marrow is the spongy tissue inside the large bones in the body. The bone marrow makes red blood cells which carry oxygen and other materials to all of the body's tissues, white blood cells which fight infection, and platelets which make the blood clot.

According to the Leukemia HelpLine Web site, the disease is grouped in two ways. One way is by how quickly the disease develops and gets worse. The other is by the type of blood cells that are affected.

Leukemia is either acute or chronic. In acute leukemia, the abnormal blood cells are blasts that remain very immature and can't carry out their normal functions. The number of blasts increases rapidly, and the disease gets worse quickly. Chronic myelogenous leukemia -- or CML -- progresses slowly and usually occurs in people who are middle-aged or older, although it also can occur in children. In the first stages of CML, most people don't have any symptoms of cancer.

(facts from www.leukemiahelpline.org)