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SEARCHING FOR THE PERFECT MATCH // IN HER FIGHT AGAINST LEUKEMIA

 
Published March 17, 1996|Updated July 6, 2006

The search has just begun, and already it feels like time is slipping away.

It has been six weeks since Francine Dimry began living with leukemia. Six weeks since life began revolving around her urgent need for a bone marrow transplant. Dimry, the 26-year-old wife of Tampa Bay Bucs cornerback Charles Dimry, and a mother of three pre-schoolers, has been the recipient of a massive outpouring of love, help and support in this beach-side community, some 40 minutes north of San Diego.

But the Dimrys must look beyond Oceanside's borders. For a bone marrow donor with just the right genetic makeup. For someone of African-American/Hispanic descent, like her. Someone in the proper age group. Someone in good health, with a giving heart.

In short, a perfect match.

It is, of course, the ultimate irony of Francine's situation. And the cruelest. In every other way, her perfect match is right there beside her. Charles Dimry is hers and she is his. They both know it, and wear it, like sweetheart pendants around their necks. They have from almost the day they met in 1990, when Charles remembers thinking this was a girl he could marry, a girl with a good head on her shoulders. Somebody who knew where she wanted to go in life, and would find fun along the way.

"They are Prince Charming and Cinderella, all wrapped in one," said Vestra Ash, a longtime family friend. "Theirs is a love story for all time. They're inseparable."

But Charles can offer his wife no cure. Francine's father is black, her mother is Hispanic. The ethnic mix does not completely preclude finding a bone marrow match, but it substantially lengthens the already long odds. Only 13 percent of the national marrow registry is African American or Hispanic. The potential donors for a mix of those two ethnic groups is statistically too small to measure.

Or as Randall Godinet, one of Charles Dimry's best friends from high school, put it, "Maybe we'll find that needle in the haystack that we're looking for."

A race against time is anything but foreign to Francine, this indefatigable mother of three (ages 4, 3, and 2), this lover of the weekend 5K, a young woman who got married, graduated from college, and began her family as if someone somewhere had turned over an hourglass and shouted "Go."

Indomitable. Unsinkable. Unflappable. Her resolve is her calling card. If you can figure out another way to call Francine Dimry a survivor, do so. Because now, more than ever, she believes it apt.

Why me? She took that most common of laments and did a little renovation: "Why not me?" she asked. Why not be the one who beats this?

For those who hazard a mention of death to Francine, who dare to tip-toe around the topic of her dying, her reply is swift and unassailable: Aren't we all? Whose immunity system is that well developed?

"I'm not fearful of dying," she said. "I'm not fearful of anything, really, except pain. And I'm not really fearful of that. So if people want to step around that question, and say, "Well, you know you could die.' So could you. You don't know if you're going to get hit by a car crossing the street.

"This thing seems like it's beatable. Some forms are curable. And, hey, that's all you need to tell me. If there's one person out there who beat it, that's all I need to know. Because I felt if there was one person who beat it, it'd be me. Who else would it be? Who else but me?"

Focusing on Erin,

Carlee and C.J.

Francine has had few complications brought on by the weakening of her immunities after two sets of chemotherapy treatments. On Thursday, after her white blood cell count climbed over 1,000, meaning her immunity level is stronger, she was allowed to come home, ending her 43-day hospital stay. She awaits three more rounds of follow-up chemo, scheduled every six to eight weeks. She remains the light at the center of this life-and-death search. A beacon from which others gain strength, and perspective.

Passionate about parenting, she spent her hospitalization mulling over whether her oldest daughter, 4-year-old Erin, will be taking the bus when she starts school this fall in Tampa. Her biggest source of angst during her illness, she says, was that Erin, Carlee, 3, and Christopher, 2, (who goes by C.J.) would miss out on their frequent trips to Disneyland, Sea World, or Discovery Zone.

In the hospital, nothing made her spirits soar more than Erin getting to spend the night in her Mommy's room, or when Charles told her that Erin had been playing Mommy herself _ reading C.J. a story one night while he was on the potty.

"It's tough to just sit back and wait," Charles Dimry said. "I can't give her my blood. I can't give her my marrow. Obviously we know what could happen. The chances (of finding a match) are slim. But you have to stay positive. Like you know we're going to find that match somehow."

Even for siblings, the prospects of matching bone marrow is just 25 to 30 percent. The odds decrease exponentially from there. Francine's three younger half-sisters, as well as her parents, have been tested, but none are matches. A fourth half-sister, who she had not known, is being tested.

If there is a silver lining in the Dimrys' plight, it is that the population of greater San Diego is 22 percent Hispanic, with the Mexican border just minutes away. More than anywhere else in the country perhaps, San Diego's cultural melting pot offers the chance to find the correct ethnic mix.

With heightened awareness and bone marrow registry as a goal, Charles Dimry and a half-dozen fellow NFL players last week began a series of blood and bone marrow drives on her behalf. The Bucs and area blood banks are planning drives in Tampa Bay this summer.

A similar search has been going on just north of here, in Orange, Calif., where Michelle Carew, the 18-year-old daughter of baseball's Rod Carew, has been waiting seven months for a matching bone marrow donor. Anaheim Ducks hockey player, Milos Holan, 24, underwent a bone marrow transplant in February after a four-month search. Patients who receive transplants from an unrelated donor have about a 30 to 60 percent chance of a cure.

"I don't really feel helpless in any situation," Francine said. "I just don't have that feeling at all. You can attack something from a lot of different angles. And I'm going to try them all. I've done that with everything in my life."

"I was hoping I'd be wrong'

It began with with a routine case of the flu in December. The entire family came down with it, producing the rarity of all five Dimrys resting at home in Hunter's Green, a Tampa sub-division.

Francine couldn't shake it, long after Charles and the children recovered. Strong antibiotics helped, and when the football season ended, the family moved cross-country to its off-season home in Oceanside. But there, Francine's fatigue, nausea and headaches returned.

Her pace of running a 5K road race nearly every weekend went out the window. She couldn't even make it through a half-mile jog, and nearly passed out after trying aerobics. When she felt exhaustion just carrying her 2-year-old up a flight of stairs, she knew something was desperately wrong.

Francine's response? "I'm a Mom," she says. "I just got my medical books out and looked it up."

Leukemia. She looked it up. All the symptoms were there. It was a textbook case in her estimation. She made a self-diagnosis days before a doctor ever tried.

"I was right," she said, smiling. "I'm always right. I hate being right. I was hoping I'd be wrong. But I was right."

She shared her discovery with Charles that evening. "She said, "You know, honey, I think I have leukemia,' " recalls Charles.

"She said, "You should be prepared, because I really believe I have it.' I didn't want to accept it. But knowing Francine, and the way she uses her mind and thinks everything out, she's not wrong very often."

Days later, the Tuesday after the Super Bowl, she was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) _ an aggressive strain of the disease. The next day, Charles' 30th birthday, she was admitted to Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas, 10 miles south of Oceanside.

Time was of the essence in starting chemotherapy; doctors said she could have a week to gather her thoughts and deal with the shock. She took a day.

"I was sad. I cried, for about eight hours," she said. "Then I was mad for another eight hours. Then I called the doctor and said, "All right, I'm ready to go.' You can't dwell on any of those stages."

Francine treated her leukemia with respect, but not awe. It was another of life's problems to be worked. Get on top of it, or it will do the same to you. She would research it, learn it, speak the language. She would treat it like a college thesis, becoming the resident expert. She would lead the discussion, inspect every doctor's order, and most of all, trust her own instincts. She would not play victim.

She burned up her laptop, tapping into the Internet to get the latest information on leukemia from the National Cancer Institute. Her computer gave out on her, no doubt from overuse.

"That's how she approaches all problems," said Pat Dimry, Charles' mother. "She has to learn about it in order to deal with it. Her passion is and probably always will be learning. She'd be in trouble now if she wasn't that way. She'd be in real trouble."

Those who know her best say Francine was the last person they expected to be facing a fight with death. Her schedule always had been as crowded as the beach on the Fourth of July. With tennis, running, non-stop outings with the kids, extra college courses at night, her laptop, and a love of reading, there was no time for illness.

"She's a highly motivated person," said Charles Dimry Jr., Charles' father. "A high-energy lady."

"You reap what you sow'

The Oceanside Boys and Girls Club is little more than a fly pattern away from Interstate 5, Southern California's major thoroughfare. It doesn't look like much: a plain, white-brick building in a low-income neighborhood. But inside, the activity on this Saturday morning just might save lives. Maybe Francine Dimry's.

The first in a month-long series of bone marrow and blood drives on her behalf is underway. At the end of the day, a San Diego-area record 172 people will have come forward to register as bone marrow donors. Even more donated blood.

Even if no matching donor is found from this turnout, Charles Dimry has received an infusion of hope, love and support. Old friends, ex-teachers and coaches, and even total strangers have come out to collectively hold he and his family close.

"Charles is a family man," said Godinet, Dimry's high school friend and the executive director of the boys and girls club. "This town cares about him. People like that he still makes this his home."

Jerry Palmquist, a bear of a man, is central casting's idea of what a high school football coach, or ex-coach in this case, looks like. Palmquist still teaches at Oceanside High. He coached Dimry in football and basketball, and taught him Social Studies.

"He's a gentleman," said Palmquist, his arm freshly wrapped after a donation of blood. "He's always been a gentleman. Charles is just a good person. You reap what you sow. This is his return. Today."

When Francine's leukemia was diagnosed, Charles, the most private of men, was not inclined to ask for help. Giving had always come easily, but it was the taking that he and Francine had such little experience with. To receive help was to relinquish total control of his family's crisis. And Charles Dimry liked being in control.

"I knew when Charles asked for help, he was scared," said Godinet. "For him to go outside the family and ask me, I knew it was beyond his control."

Godinet contacted his cousin, San Diego Charger linebacker Junior Seau. While Dimry is using his NFL platform and celebrity to reach others on his wife's behalf, the blood and marrow registry drives will benefit all in Francine's situation. There was controversy surrounding preferential treatment for Mickey Mantle's liver transplant. But with bone marrow, the difficulty in finding a match eliminates the existence of a priority list.

Seau, as well as Tampa Bay Bucs John Lynch and Demetrius DuBose, have taken the ball and run with it, helping organize the blood bank efforts. The Bucs organization arranged and paid for the catering of two meals per day for the Dimry family. Lynch's wife, Linda, jumped in and became a second mom to her friends' three children. She collected money from other Bucs wives, furthering the catering into March.

It was Seau who struck an emotional chord at last week's news conference to announce the blood and marrow drives. In an impassioned statement to San Diego and beyond, Seau said: "The true fact is, (Francine's) in trouble. She's in trouble and she needs your help. It's life or death ... If you don't go to the blood bank, if you're a praying person, we ask you to pray. It only takes a knee."

Searching for an answer

Having immersed herself in the study of leukemia treatment, Francine, as much as anyone, knows the percentages and possibilities. A prayer to St. Jude, the patron saint of difficult cases and things despaired, was tacked to the wall of her hospital room.

Erin recently cut to the chase as only kids will, asking her mother straight out:

"She said, "Mom, I know you're really sick, but are you going to die?' " said Charles Dimry, his eyes watering at the memory. "Fran said, "Well, honey, you know I am really sick, but I'm not going to die.' "

Her fight, Francine says, has just begun. If at least 95 percent of the leukemia has been eradicated by the first two rounds of chemo, and she will undergo a test to determine that on Tuesday, she would be in clinical remission. She would need to remain in long-term remission for two years to avoid needing a marrow transplant.

If a matching donor is not found, other treatment options include more chemotherapy and immune therapy, or an autologous transplant _ in which Francine's own marrow would be removed, cleaned artificially with antibodies, then returned to her body.

The success ratio for the procedure is 30 to 60 percent, the same as a transplant from an unrelated donor, but the risk of relapse is higher.

"I can't worry about a donor," Francine said. "I'll deal with that when it comes up. They're making such strides, by the time I have to worry about that, they may have something totally different, a new treatment, or prolonged remission."

Charles is already making plans to transfer Francine's care back to Tampa this summer, in anticipation of training camp in July. But his focus, he said, is week to week, not unlike the way he has been trained to view the unfolding of a football season.

"Obviously I know about the time restraints," he said. "I know about everything that could happen. But I try not to think about that stuff. When you're first faced with this situation, all you hear about is, "My uncle died of cancer, or my little brother died of leukemia.' You never hear about the people who beat it, so you think no one beats it, and that it's like a death sentence.

"When I found out Fran had leukemia, I was like, "God, she's going to die. I mean, everybody dies from it.' But that's not true. You just don't hear the good stories. But now I'm hearing them. And it makes you feel good. We're not stopping here. We're going to exhaust every option we can. We'll keep trying, man, until we find an answer."

How to help

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are heading local efforts to assist Francine Dimry in her search for a bone marrow donor. The 26-year-old wife of Tampa Bay cornerback Charles Dimry was diagnosed with leukemia in late January. Francine Dimry is of African-American and Hispanic descent, and because bone marrow is largely race specific, she faces long odds in finding a "perfect match" marrow donor.

A white blood cell carries six distinguishing characteristics or fingerprints on its surface, called antigens. A perfect match, in layman's terms, results when all six antigens match with a donor's. If a leukemia patient receives a bone marrow transplant within her first period of remission, her chances of defeating the disease is as high as 60 percent.

To screen a donor for a bone marrow match, all that is needed is a blood sample. Donors must be between 18 and 60, in good health and within 20 percent of their ideal body weight for their height and age, with no history of cancer, asthma or heart disease. Leukemia patients also use large amounts of blood, and thus blood drives will be part of the Bucs' efforts on Francine Dimry's behalf.

Charles Dimry will appear at bone marrow testing drives to be held April 25 at the Rowlett Park Boys and Girls Club (from 9 a.m. to noon) and the Ybor City Boys and Girls Club (from 5 to 9 p.m.). Both events are in conjunction with Florida Blood Services' marrow donor program. A blood drive is being scheduled for the first week in July, in addition to a Leukemia Society celebrity luncheon on June 28.

More than 2-million Americans are registered in the National Marrow Donor Program. Those interested in becoming a bone marrow donor can call the National Marrow Donor Program at 1-800-Marrow-2, or Florida Blood Services at 813-461-5433.

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