After months of searching, Freetown's Paul Couto gets marrow — from a donor close to home
FREETOWN — Since he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, back in March, family and friends of 54-year-old Freetown resident and middle school teacher Paul Couto have been rallying to find him a suitable bone marrow donor — one who matches as closely as possible with his own DNA. And while a match doctors would consider ideal never materialized, family friend Alicia Bredberg says she and others are hopeful an act of bravery by Couto's daughter, 26-year-old Sarah Couto, will be enough to beat the cancer for good.
"Sarah ended up being the donor," said Bredberg, who has been organizing bone marrow drives and other efforts to find a donor since Paul's diagnosis. "Ideally, the match for donation would have been eight out of 10 markers, but there was no donor that matched that. Sarah met five out of the 10 markers and I guess the transplant team is comfortable enough using her.
"There is an increased risk that he will reject the donation, but because she is a direct descendent, I guess there are a lot of variables there that could work in his favor. If he didn’t do this, they said he’d be dead by August."
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According to Bredberg, Sarah — a 2014 "Top 10" Apponequet Regional High School graduate — was admitted to the Dana-Farber Cancer Research Center in Boston ahead of her father around mid-July to begin the extraction process. "It was a two-day process. Sarah is a petite woman and Paul is a big guy, so they had to make sure they took enough," she said, adding that Paul's system required a "flush-out" via chemotherapy before receiving his daughter's donation. "He'll even have a new blood type now."
Hope by the busload
But before Paul made the trip up to Boston to join his daughter and undergo the transplant process, Bredberg said she and others wanted to send him off in high spirits, spreading word in time to have a Freetown-Lakeville district school bus full of supporters pulling up to the Coutos' Freetown home to share a special moment with the Freetown-Lakeville Middle School history teacher.
"It was a surprise, kind of a last-minute thing. I didn’t want to plan anything too far ahead ... because I didn’t want to jinx him," Bredberg said, noting that fever in the week leading up to Paul's intake had doctors beginning to worry before his condition stabilized. "There were about 30 people there, which was nice. It was last minute and in the middle of the day when everyone was at work, but there were a couple of students there, there were some co-workers that came, some of his friends he met through AFS (American Field Service) which is the exchange student organization we work with, and us his friends."
More background: Saturday event to seek marrow donor for longtime Freetown-Lakeville teacher Paul Couto
And now, they wait...
With the transplant process now complete, Bredberg says it's all about high hopes and preparation as the Coutos and their supporters count down the days until discharge.
"When Paul comes home in 30 days he will be in complete isolation, so his wife and friends and family have been preparing the house for that. He has to have his own bathroom, his own bedroom, and nobody can interact with him; nobody can pass through room; he has to take his meals separately," she said. "(Paul's wife) Jessica had to have the heating and A/C system professionally sanitized, she had to remove all area rugs and curtains, and just a few days before he comes home I’ll come over with a team of friends and bleach the house from top to bottom.
"So it'll be a little different but, he'll be home."
This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: #CoutoStrong supporters hope Freetown woman's marrow saves dad's life
