The Long Bone Marrow Transplant

Bill's background includes being born and raised in Los Angeles where he attended Dorsey HS and went on to graduate from USC with a BA in Biology.  He spent time stationed in Heidelburg, Germany while inthe US Amry's Medical Corps for Dental Service.  After returning to the Los Angeles area he became a Pharmaceutical Sales Rep for Pfizer.  He then married his wife and a short while later moved their family to Malibu where they lived for 36 years until his retirement which brought hm & his wife here to PismoBeach.  They have 6 children, 5 living in the Bay Area and 1 living in Valencia.  They have 8 grandchildren and 1 great grand son.

Bill is actively involved in the RAM Coffee Cabinet, San Luis Bicycle Club, Flying Samaritans Gold Coast Chapter, and VagabundosDel Mar.  His hobbies include travel, family, fishing, photography, and computers.

Bill's son Joe and his wife live in San Rafael (Bay Area).  Their daughter Anabella was born in 2003 with an extremely rare bone marrow disease which was essentially a deficiency in platelets.  From an extremely early age, mere months of age, Anabella needed blood transfusions every 4 to 5 days which essentially caused Joe and his wife to halt their life to spend an overwhelming amount of time at the UC San Francisco Medical Center where it was decided that, although most bone marrow transplants are done when a child is 15-18 months of age at the earliest, Anabella would need one at the tender age of 12 months old.

No matches for her bone marrow type were found in their family so they set out to find a match on the National Donors list.  Many times they came close to finding a donor but were slightly off in the necessary matching components (8 of 10 are necessary for success).  One day, they found on the registry a match from a 52 year old man in Indiana... and it turned out to be a PERFECT 10 out of 10 match which is over a 1 in a million chance.  The procedure took place and Anabella's life was saved.

The family now had to pay for the expenses of which their insurance would only cover approximately half leaving them with over $100,000 in uncovered expenses.  Bill and his friend Lynn Schultz, who was in attendance as well on Wednesday morning, spearheaded the fund raising efforts enlisting Cliff Stepp's help with a marketing campaign including a website, events, and an amazing list of donors of everything from raffle and auction items to trinkets made by Arroyo Grande HS students to sell.  Bill said that through hard work, dedication, and organization, they were able to raise the needed funds well ahead of schedule.  He credits much of this to his massive follow-up PR campaigning.

He closed our time with 2 potential ways to prevent bone marrow diseases that everyone ages 18-60 years of age ought to do... 1. Immunization with oral swab,  OR  2. Sub-cutaneous injection into the arm.

Bill was presented with a donation on hs behalf from our club as a token of our appreciation and was extended an invitation to join our group by Madame President Lisa.  I am sure everyone in attendance would agree that his fund raising abilities would be greatly appreciated!!!  Long Live Anabella!