LANGLEY AFB, VA. –
Capt. Daniel "Magic" Lee, a 27th Fighter Squadron pilot, always donates blood when he can. Nearly 10 years ago at the Air Force Academy, he checked the little box on the form asking if he wanted to register with the National Marrow Donor Program. One extra test tube of blood was drawn - and he thought no more about it for several years.
And then a little over a month ago he got a message: "Captain Lee, please call the C. W. Bill Young Department of Defense Marrow Donor Program."
"I had to verify who I was, confirm my date of birth and verify that I did agree to be in the registry," Lee said. Then he had to complete a much lengthier questionnaire.
Lee's bone marrow matched that belonging to a 27-year-old man with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or ALL is a fast-growing cancer of the white blood cells. Lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell that the body uses to fight infections. In ALL, the bone marrow makes lots of unformed cells called blasts that normally would develop into lymphocytes. However, the blasts are abnormal. They do not develop and cannot fight infections. The number of abnormal cells - or leukemia cells - grows quickly. They crowd out the normal red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets the body needs.
When a patient is diagnosed with ALL, he or she may have 100 billion leukemia cells. If chemotherapy destroys at least 99 percent of these cells, the patient is in remission.
However, that could still leave 100 million leukemia cells in the body. If these cells aren't destroyed, they could grow and multiply and cause a relapse of the disease. It's at this stage that Lee's bone marrow would be given to the patient he is matched with.
"The rest of his life he'll be producing my DNA - it's the only long-term cure for leukemia," Lee said.
According to David Means, a Work-Up supervisor with the DoD Bone Marrow Donor Program, the chances that donors will come up as a match when they join the registry is one in 10,000.
Mr. Means' job is to educate donors about the donation process to obtain informed consent from donors.
"We work with the donor's command to obtain permissive temporary duty or no-cost orders to cover the donor's time away for donation," Mr. Means said. "The Work Up coordinators also set up physical exams with donors typically through their primary care physicians. The results are reviewed by two medical directors.
"If we determine that the donor is fit and healthy to donate, we make flight and hotel arrangements for the donor," Mr. Means said. "Finally, we track the donor's recovery through weekly phone assessments to determine if the donor is recovering on track and if the donor needs additional medical attention after donation."
Lee checked into the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, where all DoD bone marrow donations are performed. He was up bright and early the next morning and in the operating room at 7:30 a.m.
The ninety-minute procedure involved a small incision made in to his lower back, just under his kidney. The physician took a T-handle needle and began extracting his marrow from his pelvic bone. More than one liter was extracted from his body.
He likened the procedure to being a part of an assembly line. A week and a half later he still had a lower-than-normal volume of blood in his body, and he was tired.
"The hard part is, I can't help out too much around the house and I can't even pick the kids up," the captain said. It takes three to four weeks for donors to fully recover, so during this time, he is placed on what is called duty not to include flying.
His wife, Rebecca, is handling most of the care of their almost three-year old son Benton, and 15 month-old daughter Catherine.
"I'm very proud of him and happy he was brave enough to do this," Rebecca said of her Raptor pilot husband.
And how did the children handle daddy being gone?
"Benton just thought daddy was at work flying airplanes," Mrs. Lee said.
Because of confidentiality issues, the Lees will not know the identity of the recipient for one year.
"I hope we get to meet the recipient and his family, and of course, we hope for the best possible outcome," Mrs. Lee said.
When he's not flying F-22s or donating bone marrow, the Radford, Va. native keeps busy restoring his 102-year-old Victorian home in downtown Hampton.
He said there are parts of his experience in Washington, D.C. that made an indelible impression on him.
"Very few people walk into a cancer ward and walk out well. I walked through a pediatric ward and saw kids with cancer; there were toys for toddlers - in a surgical waiting room.
"You realize you have nothing to complain about, and it certainly gives you a greater perspective about life."
His co-workers have been behind him 100 percent.
"I've gotten nothing but positive support from the commander on down," Lee said. "If they know anything at all about the process, they know it needs to be done, so it was an easy sell. You make a small sacrifice, and someone can survive."