When Jeana Moore’s granddaughter Jada Bascom was just five months old, doctors informed the little girl’s parents she’d need a bone marrow transplant to survive.
Diagnosed with leukemia at birth, Jada had already required four chemotherapy treatments—and time was running out. After two months on the donor waiting list, doctors found her match on the National Bone Marrow Registry and Jada received her life-saving transplant in 2007.
“Our family was lucky,” Moore said. “We only waited two months, but each of those days waiting on the registry to know whether or not the one that you love is going to find a match is really hard. It’s a matter of life and death for the one that you love.”
Today, Jada’s cancer is in remission, and she’s showing all signs of a healthy 2-year-old. However, her grandmother’s journey has just begun. After her experience with Jada, Moore wanted to help others find their matches through the registry and speak with people nationwide about the process of becoming a bone marrow donor.
So she decided to take a walk—from Seattle through Los Angeles, and finally to New York City—a distance of more than 5,000 miles.
“I decided I wanted to talk to people face-to-face and get the word out. I thought the best way to do that was to walk,” Moore said. “All along the way, I’m meeting people. Now I have faces and names for those people who are waiting.”
The 57-year-old celebrated a recent birthday on the road and will celebrate another before she reaches her final destination sometime in the spring of 2011.
After months of planning, Moore’s journey began on Oct. 19, 2009, at the Seattle cancer hospital where Jada received her transplant. Moore braved the cold and wet Pacific Northwest winter, making the months-long trek down Highway 101 through Oregon. Now that she’s in California, she’s required to stay off the highways, relying on friends back home to plot her course along railroad tracks and frontage roads on Google Maps.
Moore relies on her trusty Blackberry, donated by Verizon, to update her online blog, keep in touch with family back home, and chat with Jada on the phone. On a typical day, Moore rises with the sun, packs up her tent and sleeping bag in her backpack, and hits the road, relying on the generosity of strangers for food and shelter.
She travels light, without cooking equipment—only water, a few nutrition bars, and trail mix to sustain her. When she’s hungry, she visits restaurants and, most of the time, she’s fed.
She’s gone through four pairs of walking boots already, clocking 1,200 miles since her walk began. Moore said she averages about 12 to 15 miles per day in good weather, walking only during daylight hours and stopping every three or four days to set up community drives.
“As I’m walking along the highway, sometimes people will stop and want to know what I’m doing and I’ll share with them,” Moore said. “It has unfolded that what I thought to be true is true. When people hear the story about Jada, and when they realize how easy it is to become a match, they feel moved. And many people are joining.”
Her journey brought her to Santa Maria on March 8 to spread her message and connect locals with national donor recruiters. During her stopover, Moore visited City Hall to encourage the mayor’s office to issue a proclamation for an annual bone marrow awareness day. Then she traveled to Allan Hancock College to petition the school to hold a campus bone marrow drive. Moore said she’d send Mayor Larry Lavagnino a draft of a proclamation to present at a future City Council meeting.
While in town, Moore also made a request to the community on behalf of a 15-year-old from Gonzales she met along the way.
“I especially reach out to the Hispanic community here in Santa Maria and encourage them to sign up,” Moore said. “We’re praying every day that we’ll find a match for Jose.”
For Moore, the message is more important than the route she takes. Her goal is to sign up 20,000 new people to the National Marrow Donor Program’s “Be The Match” Registry. Moore said 6,000 people each day are looking for bone marrow donors, and while there are 8 million names on registry in the United States, just two out of every 10 will find a match.
“A simple cheek swab will tell you if you’re the match that can save a life,” Moore said. “The message is so simple, and we want to get it out.”
According to Moore, most people are reluctant to sign up for the registry due to public misconceptions about the difficulty of becoming a donor.
“There’s a lot of fears and myths wrapped around the phrasing of ‘bone marrow donor,’” she said. “Most people envision cracking bones and more invasive procedures. People don’t understand with new medical technologies how un-invasive it is.”
Typically after potential donors register, they’re called to submit a blood sample to determine if they match someone on the list. A drug is administered to the donor to help the body create more blood-producing cells. Most of the time, the donor goes to the doctor five straight days for shots.
“It’s like giving plasma,” Moore said. “They put a needle in your arm, they filter out the blood-producing cells, put everything else back, and you’re done.”
While Moore has made a great deal of progress in her goal to educate the public, she’s far from finished. As of press time, Moore was heading to Lompoc, following Highway 1. El Capitan, Goleta, and Santa Barbara are next, and she’s due to arrive in Santa Monica on March 28, where bone marrow drives are ready and waiting.
For the second stage of her walk, from L.A. to the East Coast, Moore plans to be accompanied by a “Marrow Mobile,” a van offering free cheek-swab testing.
Her toughest physical challenges still lie ahead. She’ll reach the Arizona desert in May and will have to make the stretch from Washington, D.C., to New York City this winter. Moore said she’s ready.
Even after she reaches the Big Apple, Moore isn’t done. She plans on walking in England and Europe to continue spreading the word.
And what does her family think about all this?
“My daughter was concerned at first, but she had faith and belief that the American people would help me out, and they have,” Moore said. “This crosses all boundaries of our political thinking and our religious beliefs. Leukemia touches everyone.”
“Now [my family] can see how people have helped me and watch out for me, and for that I’m grateful,” she added. “And they can rest a little easier, too.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas can be contacted at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 11-18, 2010.