Gary Solomon, Jr. and CLL President Quentin Murray.

The Solomon Group graciously donated an Apple IPad Air for the CLL to raffle.

Quentin Murray is an 11-year-old 5th-grader at Lafayette Academy Charter where he excels at math and science. Quentin has played Upward basketball for the past four years and loves to color and draw. He also likes to play his Nintendo DS, jam to music and watch cartoons. Quentin, who was diagnosed with ALL seven years ago this July, celebrated his sixth-year transplant anniversary in March. The transplant, which cured his leukemia, was courtesy of his little sister Jory, an unexpected pregnancy, who served as his bone marrow donor.

Jory Murray is a 6-year-old straight-A student. She will be a first-grader at LAC. Like her brother, she enjoyed Head of the Class status several times last school year. Jory recently completed her fourth year of dance, studying ballet at New Orleans Dance Academy. She is looking forward to switching things up a bit to include jazz and tap. Jory also likes fashion, playing school and protecting Quentin.

As President, Quentin has set a fund-raising goal of $10,000.


Here is Quentin’s Story….


Charming and rambunctious Quentin had always been a perfectly healthy kid. By four, the extent of his medical history had been one ear infection and three stitches to his right pinky finger following a tussle with a bar stool. Suddenly, in the summer of 2007, he was hit, first, with a mysterious and recurrent swollen eye and, then, various aches and pains across the body. The swelling would come and go, and at first, so would the pain. But eventually, it became a mainstay. By the end of the summer, Quentin wanted to partake in neither of the things he had been looking forward to all year – summer camp and being the ringer bearer in his uncle’s wedding because his “legs hurt too much to walk.”

Though many dismiss Quentin’s mystifying ailments to a head start on sibling rivalry, deep down inside, I recognized the truth and severity of the matter. My child was sick, or else, he wouldn’t be so adamant about it. I devoted all my energy to getting to the source of the pain. After countless doctor visits, specialist visits, and even an MRI, Quentin was diagnosed with leukemia on July 12, 2007. He was looking at a 5-7 year chemotherapy treatment protocol. But what happened next slashed that estimate to a fraction of that time. We were approached about a clinical trial involving collecting and storing the placental blood of Quentin’s unborn baby sister. Though Quentin went into remission about a month after he was diagnosed, a week later, his chromosome test came back, showing that he was in the highest percentage bracket to relapse. His doctor deemed a transplant necessary. Before we turned to the national registry, his doctor decided to wait until Jory was born to determine if she would be a match. Transplant matches in siblings occur only 25% of the time, and it's even rarer for girl-to-boy or boy-to-girl to match.

Not only was Jory a match, she was the most perfect match possible. Our doctors said to have a sibling already on the way be a match is the equivalent of winning the lottery. Though Quentin was transplanted last of five patients undergoing the procedure at the hospital at that time, he started making new cells the fastest. This is likely largely due to cord and placental blood transplant, of which Quentin is the first in the world to receive. Based on what occurred with Quentin’s treatment, he’s being tagged as the boy who launched a thousand cures, as Celgene, the company that banked Jory’s cord and placenta blood and holds the exclusive rights to this technology, are using what they saw happen for him with stroke, Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis patients. That is just the beginning.

Mary Webb
Author/Blogger
The Summer of Superheroes and the Making of Iron Boy
www.ironmommy.webs.com


To help Quentin reach his fundraising goal, please consider a donation to Children’s Leukemia
League. To make a donation, please contact Anne Favret, President LLL, anne@annefavret.com or mail your donations in care of Children’s Leukemia League to Ladies Leukemia League, PO Box 9355, Metairie, LA 70055-9355