Ammon News - Family rallies to find marrow donor for ailing teen

SALT LAKE CITY — Sometimes in the most desperate of circumstances, ordinary people can be moved to do extraordinary things. Such was the case Wednesday as dozens of strangers lined up to try to help save the life of someone they had ever met.

Natasha Hawatmeh, 15, is battling leukemia in a Los Angeles-area hospital. Without a successful bone marrow transplant, doctors have told her and her family that she will likely lose her three-year fight with cancer.

After testing more than 500 family members and friends, no matches were found, which prompted her cousin Diana Hawatmeh of Sandy to make one last-ditch effort to find a suitable donor here in Utah.

Complicating things is the fact that the teenager's family is of Jordanian ancestry, and ethnic minorities nationwide sign up at a much lower rate for the bone marrow donor registry, making the search for a match even more challenging.

Similar sign-up efforts are being conducted in California and Las Vegas, she said. But the odds are 300,000 to 1 that a match will be found in time to save Natasha's life.

Diana Hawatmeh said because of the urgency of her cousin's condition, testing results will be expedited.

According to the National Bone Morrow Donor Program's website, about 8 million people are registered as potential donors.

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Dr. Julie Asch, assistant director of the Intermountain Bone and Marrow Transplant Program at LDS Hospital, said the average likelihood of finding an unrelated marrow donor increased from 55 percent in 1993 to more than 86 percent in 2005 and nearly all — greater than 95 percent — of patients are able to find at least one potential cord blood donor. Those numbers could be even higher today, she added.

She said the reason Natasha has not been able to find a match could be "the patient has very unique, uncommon antigens that are difficult to match." Antigens are molecules that are recognized by the body's immune system.

"We need help," Diana Hawatmeh said. "There are so many children out there who need this … so many people in general."

Clad in black T-shirts that read "Team Natasha," Diana Hawatmeh and her cousin Shereen Hawatmeh-Sayegh, along with family friends Johanna Ouk and Pegah Moshirfar, handed out donor registration packets at a table placed near the entrance of the Treehouse Athletic Club in Draper, where Diana Hawatmeh works.

Upon learning about Natasha's plight, a constant stream of people took the time to sign up for the registry. Some, like Don Daoust of Lehi, felt a sense of obligation. Daoust had been directly affected by cancer in his own family.

"My wife has had cancer twice," he said. Being married to a cancer survivor has made him realize how precious life is and how simple it can be to help when asked.

"It took me five or 10 minutes to fill out the paperwork, (collect a saliva sample with) a cotton swab. … You're helping out your fellow human being," he said. "It's easy!"

Rickel Mejia and her husband Aldo of West Valley City signed up together.

She said her grandmother died of leukemia before she was born, and Mejia wanted to do her part to help and possibly save Natasha from a similar fate.

"My mom lost her mother when she was 10 years old," she said. "I really felt for (Natasha) and thought that I should come out and do something."

Her husband said it was something that was important for them both to do.

"She told me today that we should go do it, so she took off work … and told me to come do this with her," he said.

While the odds of finding a donor match for Natasha are long, Asch said having more people register with the bone marrow donor program could potentially help save her life or that of someone else.

"The more people … who are in the registry — particularly people of ethnic diversity — the more it's going to help all those people out there who are looking for a donor," she said.

By Jasen Lee/ Deseret News