Keeping Wayne alive: one family's struggle

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The family of Wayne McArthur of Pheasant Rump First Nation, near Kisbey, Sask. have undertaken a labor of love - to prolong the life of the man who is either brother, son, father, husband, nephew or uncle to them all.

Doctors have told them that a bone marrow transplant is Wayne's best chance for survival, so his family is trying to find a donor whose genetic (DNA) profile matches his.

#All family members have been tested in the hope of finding a match. It is standard practice to test the family first, as there is on average a 25 per cent chance of finding similar genetic coding between close family members, such as siblings. Unfortunately, no match was found in the family. So they turned to the Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry of the Red Cross.

"Wayne is the strength behind our family; he is our backbone," said Donna Knebush, one of McArthur's several sisters. Their rancher brother was diagnosed with leukemia in 1994.

Wayne is a strong proud man who doesn't know how to ask for help, though he has always worked hard to help other people, said Knebush.

"A lot of people are keeping us in their prayers," she said.

Her brother, aged 38, manages Red Thunder Ranch, though he can no longer ride a horse and run the trail rides because of his illness. He worries about the future of the ranch. The ranch has been very important to the family and to others as well. It's home to one of the prairie's ancient medicine wheels in the Moose Mountain district, southeast of Regina.

About 600 Canadians a year need bone marrow transplants, said Val Figliuzzi, the northern Alberta co-ordinator for the registry. Leukemia is the most common disease for which the procedure is used, but other forms of cancer and cancer-like conditions also can be treated with transplants. In Alberta, there are about 24,000 names on the registry, in Canada about 160,000 and in the world about 4.4 million people.

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When a potential donor is tested for the registry (there is a three-stage process that a donor goes through) his or her genetic information becomes part of a worldwide network. This sounds encouraging (4.4 million possible donors and only 600 recipients per year in Canada,) but it is less encouraging when one realizes that most of the registered donors are Caucasian.

For an Aboriginal person, including Metis, or any ethnic minority, the process is, in Figliuzzi's words "challenging." Four-and-a-half years after Wayne was diagnosed, the family is still searching for a match.

Though Wayne is status, his racial mix is Metis. His family is asking that Metis people, especially, take their plea for Wayne's life to heart. Unfortunately, Metis people represent a very small percentage of all donors on the Canadian Red Cross Society Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry.

Knebush expresses her frustration that there is so little education about bone marrow donation. Though people often join the program because they hear a personal story such as Wayne's, Figliuzzi speaks of the importance of joining the registry with no strings attached. There just aren't the resources to test for just one person, she said. For those who join the registry, there is about one chance in 150,000 of being called on to be a donor.

"You may be able to help my brother," she said. "If not . . . perhaps someone else's life may be saved. If one other family doesn't have to go through what we're going through, it will be worth it."

To join the registry the donor must be between the ages of 17 and 59 and in good health.