Carrying on for a Friend
Carrying on for a Friend
It all started when he became e-mail pals with Michael Peñon, a boy his age who had leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. Alden decided that he wanted to find out if he could donate bone marrow to Michael. Since they were both of African-American, Hispanic, and Korean heritage, there was a good chance they’d be a match.
With his parents’ support, Alden set about getting tested. Then he learned that the National Bone Marrow Donor Program refused to test and register volunteers under age 18 who were not blood relatives of a patient needing a transplant. Alden began to fear there would be no way to help his friend, whose condition was rapidly worsening.
“I was kind of upset,” he says. “Everybody’s always talking about how there aren’t enough donors. Then when I want to help, they say no … you’re under 18.”
When Alden and his parents found a small blood center that would perform the tests, the results weren’t what they’d hoped for.
“I found out I wasn’t a match, and I was just blown,” Alden says. But his friend Michael encouraged him to continue his efforts to donate bone marrow, despite the age restrictions. Both teens knew that it’s very difficult for minorities who need a transplant to find donors—and it’s especially difficult for mixed-race minorities.
When Michael’s health took a turn for the worse, he was flown to a hospital in Cincinnati. Alden went to visit him a few weeks later and was with Michael when he died. The death of his friend hurt deeply, and for awhile, Alden had a hard time putting his world back together. “My religion got shaken a little bit,” he says. “It was like, if there’s a God, why would he do something like that?”
“Then,” Alden says, “I thought maybe God was just trying to give us the big picture.”
Every year thousands of people die waiting for a transplant because an appropriate donor cannot be found. Perhaps a tragedy such as Michael’s death, he was thinking, helps bring about change in age restrictions, so that other lives can be saved through bone marrow donations. Alden knew that Michael would have wanted him to continue his efforts to change the rules for donors.
“If he were alive, he would be pushing for this,” Alden says.
Normally shy and uncomfortable in the limelight, young Tucker talked to lawyers, legislators, and reporters. He even went on national TV to state his case for allowing teens (with parental consent) to make their own decisions about bone marrow donation.
Finally, in January 2000, his testimony before the Washington State Legislature led to the enactment of what is now known as the Michael Peñon Law. In 16 words, it converted Alden’s fight into state law in Washington: “A person’s status as a minor may not disqualify him or her from bone marrow donation.”
Now, at least one bone marrow donor registry, The Max Foundation (headquartered in Washington state), will assist teens throughout the United States and Latin America who want to become marrow donors. (It can be reached toll free at (888) 462-9368, or through the website www.themaxfoundation.org.)
Alden is looking forward to the day when bone marrow registries worldwide change their age restrictions. Meanwhile, he organizes “Hooping For Life” basketball tournaments, where he raises money for people who need bone marrow transplants and signs up volunteers who want to be tested for bone marrow donation.
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