Once in every three months, 38-year-old Sujith Nayar undergoes a bone marrow biopsy. Doctors inject a needle into his hipbone and collect a bone marrow sample to assess the severity of his leukaemia condition.
“Those are really bad days”, says Sujith’s wife Anju Sujith. “Sujith won’t be able to move on his own for days. He needs extra care and assistance. As he will easily get an infection, the house and premises need to be kept sanitised for many days.”
This has been a continuing process for the past three years, ever since the Brisbane-based young IT engineer was diagnosed with Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukaemia - a rare kind of blood cancer.
“Fortunately he is in remission now. His body is responding positively to the oral cancer drugs and it helps him continue in the remission stage,” Anju told SBS Malayalam.
Yet, Anju is worried that a relapse could make things worse.
Sujith Nayar in hospital during one of the chemotherapy sessions Source: Supplied
“Bone marrow replacement is the only option doctors suggested for a cure. He needs to find a matching donor and that, too, when he remains in remission.”
Anju, with the help of her relatives and friends all over the world, has been in search of a matching bone marrow donor for three years, but in vain. No potential donor who matches Sujith’s tissue type has been found.
“We realised that Sujith’s tissue type is a rare one. It is so hard to find a match”
Chest pain
It all started with a chest pain.
Perth-born Sujith, who loved to be active and energetic, sought advice from doctors in November 2015 to evaluate a suspected cardiac problem.
But the test results came back with a shocking news - an uncommon kind of leukaemia that they had never heard of.
Eighty-six per cent of his blood was infected with the cancer cells.
After being diagnosed with this rare kind of leukaemia, Sujith Nayar has since undergone six rounds of chemotherapy. The harsh chemo medicines had its toll on him, making him bed-ridden for months.
Source: Supplied
However, as his body and blood responded positively to the chemotherapy and oral cancer medicines, Sujith is regaining his hopes.
“He never wanted to stay in bed. Now he has started working part-time, but it is not easy,” says Anju.
Search for a donor
After repeated failed attempts to find a bone marrow donor for Sujith, his friends in Brisbane are organising another campaign.
“The Malayalee Association of Queensland (MAQ) is organising the bone marrow donor drive through the Australian Bone Marrow Donation Registry (ABMDR),” said Sudha Nair who took the initiative.
The drive will be conducted on Saturday, 22 September at St Philips Hall in Brisbane’s Annerly.
Sudha Nair told SBS Malayalam that they were expecting people from Indian or other South Asian backgrounds to come forward as ethnicity could play a major role in identifying a match.
“As the ethnic representation on bone marrow registries worldwide is very low, finding a match for someone like Sujith is like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
Sujith’s wife Anju said that according to the ABMDR figures less than two per cent of the registered potential donors are from an Indian background.
“People are unaware of the process of bone marrow donation. That could be one reason for the low percentage of registration,” Anju pointed out.
“If a match is found for Sujith, the person need not donate his or her bone marrow. Instead, it will look like a blood donation process, called a peripheral blood stem cell donation.”
That process takes around three to four hours.
“Normally the number of stem cells circulating in the blood is low. To increase the number of blood stem cells, a hormone-like substance called Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF) is injected under the skin daily for four days prior to the collection.”
On the day of the procedure, a needle is inserted into a vein in the donor’s arm and the blood passes into a cell separator machine, which selectively removes the stem cells.
“The remaining blood components are immediately returned to your body. This procedure is performed at a hospital or blood donor centre, does not require a general anaesthetic “
