Tulare 3-Year-Old to Receive Cord Blood Stem Cells from Baby Sister
By Laura Florez
Visalia Times-Delta (California)
September 25, 2002
Two years ago, we met 1-year-old Allison Calderon. Hers was a story of how things change overnight when cancer sneaks into people's lives.
A patient of Children's Hospital Central California, she fought off leukemia with radiation and chemotherapy treatments, and in the process lost her curly, long hair. She entered remission, and life went on for her and for her family.
She turned 3 this year and has left diapers in the dust, is fashion savvy and has a personality all her own. These days she's also a big sister. About two months ago her mother delivered a 7-pound, 11-ounce child.
They named her Emily and after finding out her umbilical cord blood could end up being a valuable source of healthy stem cells for someone in need of a bone-marrow transplant someday, including big sister, Allison, Emily's cord blood was saved.
Last month, on a routine visit to Children's Hospital Central California, Allison's father, Michael Calderon, was handed a slip of paper by a doctor who couldn't bear to break the news.
"I went blank when I read it," he said.
On that piece of paper was the news that Allison's cancer had returned, and her time and options were running out. There had been no symptoms. Again, the Calderons were caught off guard.
What followed was eight hours of intensive treatment for Allison.
She received platelets, chemotherapy treatments and a spinal tap, all with her father by her side and her baby sister, Emily, under the care of hospital staff.
"I wanted a road map, a plan, something that would tell me what was next," Michael Calderon said. "But I just didn't get what the doctor was telling me. She was basically trying to tell me there was no next."
In short, Michael and Jenny Calderon were told that Allison had just one last chance.
In the next couple of months Allison will look to her little sister's cord blood to save her life. It has been stored for her at Oakland General Hospital. She will receive the bone-marrow transplant at the end of October at Stanford University Medical Center.
In the meantime, the Tulare family has once again learned cancer is a disease that can strike anyone at any time.
"Right now, it's all or nothing," Jenny Calderon said. "Either it's going to work or it's not. We're just lucky that Emily's a match for Allison. We go to the hospital and hear from so many other parents who are desperately looking for a match. You almost don't want to tell them you've found a match."
According to the University of California Los Angeles Umbilical Cord Blood Bank, there was a one in four chance that Emily's cord blood would be a perfect match for Allison.
Still, there are no guarantees that the transplant will work. So in the meantime, the Calderons, including Allison's older sister, 7-year-old China, are helping make the days before her transplant happy ones for Allison.
"We were leading a regular life for a while there," Jenny Calderon said. "But as soon as you start to feel comfortable, boom, something happens. From now on, we're going to take it day by day. If these are her last days, we want her to have lived life to the fullest."
For the Calderons that means dealing with Allison's mood swings, oftentimes brought on by a mix of medications that she must take daily.
It means dealing with her urge to wear dresses on a daily basis, along with earrings and her favorite pair of dress shoes, which happen to be too small for her feet.
It means letting Allison give herself manicures and pedicures even when the colors don't match.
And it means trying to satisfy her craving of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets -- only McDonald's brand -- for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
"If anything were to happen, I'd want her to have her chicken nuggets," Jenny Calderon said.
Still, Allison has had to miss out on things because of her sickness, including this month's Tulare County Fair. The dust would have been too much for her.
And this year there is a possibility that she may miss out on this weekend's Relay For Life in Visalia, a 24-hour relay that benefits the American Cancer Society. For the past two years, Allison has been a participant in the race as a survivor. It has been an inspirational experience for the Calderons, and it has also helped them pay for mileage for hospital visits, using money raised for national cancer research and local cancer patients.
"We just have to be careful about where we go," Michael Calderon said. "The blood tests rule our lives. They tell us what we can and cannot do these days."
The days ahead won't be so easy for Allison.
Before she can accept her bone-marrow transplant, she must be in remission. She will undergo total body radiation. She will lose her hair, for the fourth time, and the treatment will kill all the bone marrow and cancer left in her body.
She'll be in isolation for two to three weeks, and after the transplant she will be put in isolation again for another two to three weeks, with only her father allowed in the room. She won't be allowed to have any of her favorite toys. She'll only be allowed to handle new toys, for fear of contamination. Until then, the Calderons are once again losing sleep, are confined to their home with their daughter's health in mind, and are trying to find optimism with every day.
