He beat cancer once. Now this Richland teen needs help to beat it again

Within weeks of starting his junior year at Hanford High, Caleb Ward started having a familiar pain in his ribs.

“Generally he was doing well, but the rib pain sounded so familiar to me that as soon as I heard that complaint, we decided to take him to the emergency room,” his mom, Rachelle, said.

When they reached Kadlec Regional Medical Center, they got the bad news — his leukemia had returned.

It was tragic news for Caleb, 16, who had been cancer-free for nearly five years. If he passed the milestone, the chances of it returning would have dropped.

The last time they fought this battle, they won with the help of an experimental trial of the cancer-fighting drug Dasatinib and chemotherapy. Now they’re hoping to turn the tide with a more traditional tack of using a bone marrow transplant to restore his healthy cells.

But finding a matching donor is not as easy as having the same blood type.

The donor’s cells need to match in a way that they fit seamlessly into Caleb’s, said Tori Fairhurst, with Be the Match.

The organization is run by the National Marrow Donor Program, which has more than 20 million eligible donors registered.

Even with that many people in the system, there is not a match for Caleb.

Be the Match

Signing up for the registry is easy. People can go online to Bethematch.org or text “Calebswarriors” to 61474.

A cheek swab will be sent to them, and all they need to do is send the sample back.

They are looking for people in good health between 18 and 44. There are a few conditions that will prevent someone from being a donor, such as autoimmune diseases, past or present blood cancer and Hepatitis B or C.

Donors who match can help in two ways.

• Giving stem cells is an outpatient procedure that involves a treatment to increase the stem cells in the donor’s blood and then a donation of blood.
• Giving bone marrow is a relatively painless procedure that involves out-patient surgery for the donor.

“We’re all just hoping and praying that Caleb’s donor will register soon,” Fairhurst said. “He or she’s out there somewhere, we’re just trying to do the best we can to find them.”

If selected, there’s no cost to the donor.

Keeping up hope

Instead of starting school last week, Caleb is spending the beginning of his junior year in Spokane receiving treatment. They are hoping he won’t fall behind again.

Both times, Rachelle said he’s been amazingly positive.

‘He’s really been a fighter,” she said. “He’s got a pretty great attitude. He uses a lot of humor to get through it.”

Even with her own emotions, she said she has to keep hoping that he will beat it. He has the “Philadelphia chromosome,” which is associated with poorer outcomes, according to the National Institutes of Health. But he was able to beat it before.

Registering for the donor program is a way people can help, Rachelle said.

“When you’re going through something like this, there’s not a lot that people can do to help, so this is one way that’s really doable,” she said.