Bone marrow testing involves a lot more than just checking for a match. Is it possible that during the other testing it came up that she has some disease that increases her own risk factor that she doesn’t want to reveal? The docs reporting that she was a match may not be aware, for example, that she also tested positive for hepatitis. Perhaps in her mind it’s easier to say “Oops, changed my mind” rather than “We need to delay the harvesting while I get treated for these pesky herpes.” Or even that it came out she has a heart problem that would affect her ability to go under anesthesia, and she doesn’t want her kids to worry. Then when she was accosted by the wife, and lambasted in the paper, she said “Screw it… he can rot.”
I have two older sisters and an older brother. My sisters have two kids each, my brother four. I have none. They are welcome to any organs they can harvest after my death, but while I’m alive I wouldn’t even consider donating anything that involved surgery. I might donate blood. And it’s not because they abused me, or because I’m selfish and can’t comprehend helping anyone else out. It’s because there are many factors about my health that impact my ability to undergo and recover from surgery, even minor ones, and I choose not to take that risk for anyone.
And the thought of conceiving a child just to save another is abhorrent.
That’s a possibility. Who knows? For the sake of argument lets pretend the basic facts are true, then how would you feel?
An organ is a different story. If it was a family member I would but I can’t judge other people’s decision about that. Personally I don’t think I would let someone else donate an organ if I needed it. If something happend to them later I couldn’t live with myself.
Of course it would be the *decent *thing to do! It’s an amazing gift to donate tissue or organs to save another’s life, whether they be a relative or stranger. The thing that is pissing me off about this thread is all the sanctimony that it is her freaking DUTY no matter what, especially this recurring theme of “Oh my god! She said she would and got tested and then she backed out!” Maybe she had second thoughts about it! Maybe she found out details about the procedure and freaked right the hell out about a needle boring into her hipbone! People’s bodies aren’t strip mines for the public good last I checked. Say to yourself that you can’t imagine anything that would be so horrible that you wouldn’t do such a thing for your brother, just count yourself lucky you’ve lived such privileged lives.
Some might, but as a man with three younger brothers, I won’t. My wife and I are both from big families. For some of her siblings, my wife would give her left arm; others don’t get the time of day. I don’t get involved.
My brothers and I are all pretty close, but that has a lot to do with the way we were raised. Mom and Dad constantly put us in situations where we depended on each other for help – yard work, household chores, etc. Even though my youngest brother was born when I was 14 (I discovered in high school what a chick magnet a really cute toddler can be – he still teases me about being my “wingman”) we have a strong emotional bond. We have wildly differing world views, religious and political beliefs and lifestyles, but there is a strong bond. Of course, I work with one of my brothers, and shared a bedroom for over 15 years with another one. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for those guys.
I don’t think you can “build” a relationship that just isn’t there. It has to happen naturally, spontaneously. No one has the right to judge you for whatever relationship you do or don’t have with your siblings – no one knows what it was like to grow up as you. Maybe, if you did try to foster a new relationship, they wouldn’t welcome it. You don’t need the heartache and bother.
Some things to consider about sibling relationships: Mom and Dad can have tremendous influence – positive and/or negative – over those relationships. Getting married and starting families usually causes shifts in loyalties and priorities, and this can cause hurt feelings. Older siblings leaving the “nest” can be very traumatic for those left behind. Human culture from the Bible to Shakespeare to Hollywood is filled with the angst, heartbreak and triumph of sibling relationships.
Maybe it’s something that I can’t imagine doing. I have three living sisters and we’re all extremely close and always have been. I had a sister that died of cancer when I was young. I just know what everyone went through. It’s a terrible thing to watch someone in your family die. If anything it made us all much closer because of it. Without question I would do it, and I’m always sorry when I hear that families aren’t closer. My husband’s family isn’t very close.
How is an “organ” a different matter? Livers regenerate as does bone marrow. Not too long ago I heard of a liver donor dying due to the donation surgery. Obviously, this is not the expected outcome, but it does happen, as do complications from general anesthesia.
I cannot agree with this. The Ayalas already raised two children whom they loved dearly. That they wanted to save their oldest child by having another only made me feel they would love that child even more. And by all accounts, young Marissa is thriving and healthy and loved. I wish more families were as loving as the Ayalas.
As for the OP, I cannot sit in judgment of the sister. I would do this in a heartbeat for my siblings. I would do it for a stranger if I were asked. I am certainly not a heroine and if I had children I may reconsider.
As for those of us who find it abhorrent to conceive a child to save another, let me explain. I think that children are ends in themselves and not means to any goal, however worth that goal seems. I do not accuse the parents who conceive a child for a purpose of not loving the child.
I’m with you on this. That the parents love the child (how could they not?) doesn’t mitigate in any way the apparently utilitarian purpose of that child in the first place. At some point that girl is going to ask, “So, if you didn’t need me to help save my sister, I wouldn’t exist?”
This will sound like nonsense to people not like me, but if you can explain in rational, logical terms why you want to have children, you probably shouldn’t have children. (Not that everyone else necessarily should either, mind you.)
Is it just me, or is anybody else noticing a definite slant in this thread - that the life of a parent is more valuable than the life of someone who doesn’t have kids? That’s the biggest problem I’m having with this thread now. You have more responsibilities and obligations as a parent, but I refuse to believe that reproducing makes you intrinsically more worthy as a human being.
I don’t think that as a parent my life is more valuable than someone else’s who is not a parent. It does make me less willing to take certain risks, and less free to indulge in behavior that carries risks. I have an obligation to the children in my care to be there to care for them. The obligation does not stem from my blood relation to them, but to the fact they are in my care and dependent on me. I am beholden to them.
It is possible that the bone marrow transplant would have only a small chance of curing his cancer, and that after agreeing to it, the doctor told his sister that there is only a small chance that it will cure him, and will likely only extend his life another year. Perhaps she felt that the risk involved (there is risk in EVERY surgery) didn’t outweigh the potential gain, and that by extending his life, she only is extending his suffering.
Well, no, but it does add one more wrinkle. I mean, even if the sister in the OP doesn’t much like her brother, presumably his kids do. If I were in that position, I’d go through with the donation for the sake of my nieces and nephews, even if I couldn’t bring myself to do it for the sake of my brother.
Absent additional information, I think the sister who won’t donate is a very bad person, and deserves to lose whatever regard and/or friends she loses as fallout from her decision. She has every right to refuse to help her brother over a trivial risk much smaller than the aggregate risk accrued from spending a lifetime driving a car, and those around her have every right to think she is small and pitiful for it. I do hope the sister never has a need for some sort of donation to save her own life, because I’d imagine volunteers would be few and far between.
There’s a possible scenario than would have the sister having her marrow tested as part of the rush of activity following his diagnosis (the test itself is a very, very safe procedure as I understand it) without being fully briefed (or possibly taking time to consider the breifing) about the risks of the actual donation procedure. Once she matched, she’d had time to consider - or was then informed of the risks of the donation procedure - and chose not to continue through.
Her choice, surely. It might not be the option I, personally, would choose, but it’s not my call to make, either.
Or possibly she had some other underlying medical condition that the matching testing revealed - or that she learned about in the interim. Maybe the test cropped up positive for Hepatitis of some flavor - or HIV. Maybe her own doctor advised her that for some reason the donation procedure is more dangerous than 1 in 328 for her.
Oh, and can I say I find the harping about the fact that he’s married with kids as a primary reason why she should do the thing exceptionally aggravating? So does she. How, precisely, does bringing up his marital and parental status allow people to overlook the fact that she features the same marital and parental status?
Keep in mind that it is extremely doubtful I will ever donate organs or bone marrow to a relative (even should they need it). This isn’t because I’m a heartless bitch - it’s because I have a long and well-documented history of erratic and severe reactions to a large sampling of drugs - including a couple of anesthetics. I have nasty drug allergies that feature anaphylaxic shock. General (and local) anesthetic is a much-bigger-than-average risk for me. Maybe it is for her, as well.
About the sis getting tested and then not donating, I wonder if she agreed to the test in the hopes that she would be incompatible, and therefore off the hook for donating. Like everything else about this story, there’s not nearly enough information to know if this was the bait-and-switch it’s being presented as.
Evidently, not, as the rest of this post bears absolutely no resemblence to anything anyone in this thread has actually said.
I don’t see how that’s any different from kids who might ask, “So, if the condom hadn’t broken, I wouldn’t exist?” I mean, a lot – if not the majority – of children in the world are not the result of planned pregnancies.
I wouldn’t say that being a parent makes a person more worthy as a human being, or that a parent is more valuable to the universe, or society as a whole. But, it is pretty darn significant to the kids involved. I tend to think that single people and people with no kids definitely face a lack of respect in our society. But, I am not so naive as to think that anyone would be as devastated by the loss of me as my children. My parents, my siblings, my friends would all miss me and feel horrible if I died (I assume! ), but the devastation to my children over losing their mother would make everyone else’s loss pale in comparison, I think, even my husband’s.
My point being that I think the idea is that the sister might not care what happens to her brother, but if she cares about his children, she might think about that and use it as a motivation for her actions.
I agree, however, with the folks who say that the article is slanted to make the sister look bad. Even that quote from the wife, where she said that the sister “smirked” is so subjective…how do we know what the actual facial expression looked like, or what it was meant to convey? We are getting the interpretation from someone who is obviously upset and angry…not a real reliable witness, IMO. And there is absolutely no information about the sister’s thought process or reasoning behind her refusal. I would really love to hear what she has to say about all of this, because it sure doesn’t make her look too good.
Very minor nitpick, but what I gathered from the articles I read, neither the brother or the sister is married. They both have partners and kids, but I don’t think they’re married. That doesn’t really change anything as far as I can tell.
), but the devastation to my children over losing their mother would make everyone else’s loss pale in comparison, I think, even my husband’s.