Page 6 - RVO What Women Want Nov 2015

6VV • What Women Want • An Advertising Supplement to the River Valley & Ozark Edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette • Sunday, November 8, 2015
WILLIAM HARVEY / RIVER VALLEY & OZARK EDITION Ashley Romero of Conway attended a bone-marrow drive in 2012 in Vilonia. The 29-year-old mother of four got a call in July to tell her she was a match for a woman in France who has leukemia, and Romero went to Washington, D.C., in September to donate peripheral blood stem cells for the woman. Romero said she donated through Be The Match and that she wouldn’t
hesitate to do it again.
HELPING a stranger Conway woman donates blood stem cells
BY TAMMY KEITH SENIOR WRITER
Ashley Romero of Conway, a married moth- er of four, got a simple cheek swab at a bone-marrow drive in 2012 and forgot about it.
Three years later, a call came that changed her life and possibly saved another one.
Romero, 29, said her cousin Kim Hankins of Conway invited her to the donation drive, sponsored by the Vilonia Fire Department. Hankins and Romero grew up in Vilonia.
“They put me on the [National Bone Marrow Donation] registry,” Romero said. “I never thought about it again. There’s such a small chance that you would get matched.”
In 2013 and 2014, Romero received emails from the registry checking to see if her personal information was the same and whether she still was interested in being on the list. Romero said she always agreed to stay registered.
In July, she was at home around the dinner table with her husband, Joel, and their four children when she got a phone call.
“It was Be The Match. They asked me if I was still interested in donating bone marrow, and they said I was found to be a possible match with a woman with leuke- mia,” Romero said. “She was in France; that’s all that I know about her. They asked would I be interested in going to get more blood work to see if I was a perfect match.”
Romero said she never hesitated.
“She’s somebody’s mom; she’s somebody’s grandma;
I got a lot of response saying how amazing it was that I was doing this for somebody, but my response to that was, ‘I’m just God’s messenger.’ He has a messenger for this lady who has
leukemia. God made me her match.”
— Ashley Romero
she’s somebody’s somebody. If this happened to me, my husband or children, and the person who was their match didn’t answer that phone call or didn’t want to donate, ... I could put myself in this lady’s shoes,” Romero said.
Romero said she had no idea what becoming a bone-marrow donor entailed. First, she had to find out if she was healthy enough.
“They put you through so many tests,” Romero said.
After finding out she was a good match for the woman, Romero had to get a series of five filgrastim shots in her stomach to move more blood-making cells from her bone marrow to her bloodstream.
She donated peripheral blood stem cells, the most common way to donate, according to Be The Match, which is operated by the National Bone Marrow Program. The second way to donate is bone-marrow donation, a
surgical procedure that removes marrow from the back of the pelvic bone.
Her first four filgrastim shots on consecutive days were at Sherwood Urgent Care; the fifth shot was given the day of the procedure, Sept. 30, in Washington, D.C.
“They were pretty painful but not as bad as I thought they were going to be,” Romero said.
She also experienced common side effects from the shots. “Those made me feel pretty under the weather — it’s like you have a major, major case of the flu,” she said. “The headache was the worst part of it.”
Romero, a stay-at-home mom, said she limited her pain medication to ibuprofen because she didn’t want the procedure to interfere with her ability to take care of her children. She has three boys, Hunter, 8, Fisher, 6, and Joel Daniel, 4; and a daughter, Amillia, 20 months.
“I made a promise to myself that I was going to do this, but I didn’t want to jeopardize my family at the same time,” Romero said.
LaCosta Beene, her friend and insurance agent, made T-shirts for Romero’s four children with the words “My Mom is a Match” printed on them.
“I went to pick up those shirts, and I felt so loved when I walked into her place,” Romero said. “She asked me if she could pray for me, and of course, I was honored by that. It was a very touching moment; there wasn’t a dry eye.”
Romero chronicled her donation story on Facebook, and she had lots of encouragement and support. She said her “prayer warriors” were her sister and brother-in-law, Nicole