Peggy Revell
The family of local resident Linda Starling is looking for support from the community after she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia this past fall.
It’s a fairly rare illness, explained Linda’s husband, Dave, which he described as a “cousin” to leukemia, where the body stops producing new blood cells.
“Her bone marrow is normal, it’s not cancerous . . . it’s just not making blood,” he noted. “It just shut down and quit.”
This leaves her especially vulnerable to viruses and infections, he said, as well as making her both tire and bruise easily.
The illness also requires repeated blood transfusions to ensure she has platelets, Dave Starling added, meaning she has had to remain in hospital in Thunder Bay for treatment since first falling ill in the fall.
So far her spirits are pretty good, he said, noting it’s a matter of just going day by day, week by week.
“Technology has come a long way, but it’s still not where it should be because it’s rare,” Starling said about treatments for aplastic anemia. “Because it’s rare, the research doesn’t get as much exposure as, say, cancer or heart transplant or something like that.”
His wife was given drugs in the hope they would “kick start” her immune system, but they haven’t worked so far, he explained.
“It’s known to take six months to start, but it normally takes four-five weeks after you have the treatment for it to start,” he said. “So this treatment hasn’t started.”
The next step is a bone marrow transplant.
“There were six others, like her siblings in her family, we were all tested, but none of us were a match for her bone marrow,” explained Jim Rose, Linda’s brother. “So now she’s on the bone marrow transplant list waiting for another donor.”
When a match is found, the transplant is not something that can be done in Northwestern Ontario.
“The bone marrow transplant will be done in Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, that’s where they do it,” Starling said. “That’s probably a minimum of two months down there.
“Then it’s like a cancer treatment, where they have to get rid of her bone marrow through chemotherapy or radiation or however they do it,” he explained.
The donor’s bone marrow then would be fed intravenously into her, like a blood transfusion, where it will find its way to the bone.
With a successful bone marrow transplant, the likelihood of aplastic anemia happening again goes away, he added.
While Starling is travelling back and forth as much as possible to be with his wife, family and friends have begun raising funds to support the family in their time of need, including an upcoming benefit slated for Saturday, Feb. 28 at the local Legion.
“The main reason behind it is we’re getting money together for Dave so when Linda is shipped to Toronto for her bone marrow transplant, he’ll have the funds to be able to stay there right with her the whole time,” said Charlotte Rose, Linda’s sister-in-law.
“I know myself that if it was happening to me, I would want my loved one beside me and for the support,” Rose added. “She doesn’t want to be there all alone and it’s too far for the rest of the family to travel there to be with her, so it’s very important that her husband stays with her.”
While there’s no set fundraising goal, the family is hoping to garner enough to offset travel costs—and have money left over so Dave can stay in Toronto with his wife for as long as she’s there for treatment.
The Starlings’ income is just from Dave’s pension after his retirement from the mill, Jim Rose noted.
“We’ve had pretty good support so far,” he said. “Like, there’s no goal in amount of money that we’re looking for . . . whatever the community can support.
“Times are tough now, with the recession and all that,” he conceded, though adding support has been coming in from near and far.
“I even had a few people from Minneapolis sending donations . . . those were people I worked for and did carpentry on the lake for,” continued Rose. “And my son is out in Calgary and he’s collecting donations.
“I’ve never had anything to do with these before. I didn’t realize there was such great support around this part of the country.”
The benefit is planned for Feb. 28 from 8 p.m.-1 a.m. at the local Legion. It will feature the live band “Center-Line,” and there will be a door prize, cash bar, and limo service.
Tickets cost $10 in advance, which are available from the Rose family, including Jim (274-4232), Ed (274-6979), Merv (274-6903), Carol/Maureen (486-3402), and Kathy (274-2433), and $15 at the door.
Donations also may be made at the CIBC.
Those interested in seeing if they could be a match for Starling, the bone marrow registry is run through Canadian Blood Services and more information is available at www.blood.ca
