Son’s bone marrow gives mom new life

SEATTLE – It wasn’t hard for Mason Bridges to decide to donate bone marrow, despite the likelihood of some pain.

“I knew that I had to do this,” the 7-year-old boy said moments before the extraction began Thursday at Children’s Hospital. “She’s my mom, and she’s really important to me.”

His mother, Kris Bridges, diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia in December, said the family came from Lexington, S.C., because she wanted the transplant done by doctors from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

“They’re the best,” she said.

Marrow was taken from four places in the boy’s pelvic bone, two in the back and two in front, and the worst he would likely experience is some bruising and possibly nausea from the anesthetic, said Dr. Colleen Delaney, one of the physicians who performed the extraction.

The marrow was then taken to the nearby University of Washington Medical Center for the transplant. Both Mason and his mother were in good condition Friday, according to Craig Degginger, a spokesman for the UW Medical Center. Although she will spend a few weeks longer in the hospital, Kris Bridges was up and walking on Friday, Degginger said.

“The benefits outweigh the risks,” said the boy’s father, Michael Bridges.

“His mom can be around a lot longer,” Bridges said. “The pain the kids would go through if she were gone would be far worse than a bad bruise on the back for a week.”

Bone marrow donations from one sibling to another are not uncommon, but fewer than 1 percent of the patients at the alliance’s outpatient transplant clinic have a child who is a suitable match, clinic director Dr. Robert Witherspoon said.

Kris Bridges has been taking Gleevec, a relatively new medication that suppresses leukemia by functioning as an enzyme inhibitor to block cell division, but eventually the blood cancer overcomes that obstacle, Witherspoon said.

A bone marrow transplant, which basically provides a new blood and immune system, gives her about an 80 percent chance at a cure, he said.

“I’m doing this so I can be with my children,” she said.

She and her husband have four children. The youngest, Kaylee, is 3. She said a transplant seemed to offer the only chance for her to see her children grow up.

Neither of her two siblings was a match, so she began searching for an unrelated donor until a test of her husband’s blood indicated her children might be worth checking.

In April, tests showed Mason was a match. The family’s church subsequently threw him a “hero party” with dinner, cake, prayers and a suitcase full of toys, and a television crew has been reporting on the family for months.

“People are being very, very nice to me,” the boy said. “They give me big hugs and lots of attention.”

“He thinks he’s won the lottery,” his mother said.