BY MICHAEL BOSTIAN
SALISBURY POST

Four-year-old Samantha Washko tells everyone that comes into her hospital room that she has leukemia. But she doesn’t know the seriousness of her condition or how much her future depends on the kindness of strangers.

Her family is reaching out for help from the community and asking people to register with the American Red Cross as marrow donors in hopes of finding the match that could save Samantha’s life.

Nancy Weber, a member of Salisbury’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church with the Washkos, has organized a bone marrow drive on Samantha’s behalf.

The event will be held Tuesday, Aug. 14, from 11 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. in Sacred Heart’s Helfrich Hall.

Salisbury Academy will join in the drive, with hopes to attract a higher turnout.

A common misconception is that bone marrow testing is very painful, said Cathy LaMarre, the girl’s aunt. In fact, she said, it’s nothing more than a visit to the doctor’s office where a blood sample is taken.

It can be expensive, however — $73 to tissue-type a potential donor. That’s why Weber and other event organizers are working with the Red Cross and Sacred Heart Church to secure funding.

She said Rick Hendrick, a Charlotte-area businessman and leukemia patient, and Community Marrow Donor Program each have made money available for these types of projects.

Other than a brief 23-hour period when she went home, Samantha has not left the confines of Winston-Salem’s Brenner Children’s Hospital in the two weeks since her diagnosis.

Doctors originally said Samantha suffers from acute lymphocytic leukemia — a form of the disease that is 80 percent treatable and curable. Unfortunately, her condition became much more complex after further testing.

Doctors found that Samantha has a very rare form of leukemia and is only the third person in the world known to have this particular condition.

“Her prognosis went way down when they found that,” said LaMarre.

A bone marrow transplant is now Samantha’s best chance at life.

Doctors typically look at family and close relatives as potential donors but the best match they could find was her father, a two-thirds match. Her 3-year-old brother was not a candidate, even though siblings often present the best chance for a match.

LaMarre said she needs a complete match for the transplant to be successful.

Currently, the top priority for Samantha’s doctors is to get her disease into remission. The transplant cannot move forward until that happens, and getting there will involve even more chemotherapy, LaMarre said.

The initial stage of chemotherapy that Samantha is undergoing destroys many of the cells in the human body. The major blast of medicine will come sometime in the next two weeks, however. She is currently in isolation at the hospital because she has practically no immune system left, her aunt said.

“It all but kills her body, but we’ve got to get rid of the cells that can generate leukemia,”LaMarre said.

“(Samantha) knows it’s the chemotherapy that is making her feel sick but she’s being a real trouper about it,”she said.

Samantha is a preschool student at Salisbury Academy and had just met her kindergarten teacher for the upcoming school year before her diagnosis.

Weber understands what the family is going through, because her own life experiences were the catalyst for the marrow drive.

Her son had leukemia, and she is now a registered marrow donor. She is not a match for Samantha, unfortunately.

“I have a miracle in my own home and it (organizing the drive) was something I could do,” Weber said. “It was a way for me to pay back.”

LaMarre said the family is also encouraging people to donate blood and platelets, because they are sustaining Samantha’s life during the chemotherapy and are critical to her treatment and recovery.

“My hope is that the more folks we get registered, the better the chance of finding a match,”LaMarre said.

Contact Michael Bostian at 704-797-4280 or mbostian@salisburypost.com .