| UConn rower gives the gift of life |
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| Written by All-Access Staff | |
| Friday, April 25, 2008 | |
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(WTNH) _ You often hear of athletes giving 100-percent of themselves, but one UConn athlete gave just a fraction of that, but hers was the gift of life.
Rower Liz Harsley didn't know she was on her way to save someone's life when her roommate, Carlee Wines, summoned her for a trip to the Student Union. She thought they were going to get some food, but Carlee had something more important in mind. They went to a Gift of Life Drive, where students are tested to see if they could be a bone marrow donor. "We went into this room, and they swabbed, well they gave you a kit, you swab the four corners of your mouth, you put it back in the kit, you sign some papers," Liz explained. Liz forget about the donation. Soon after, Carlee was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident on campus and then Liz got word that she was indeed a match for a bone marrow transplant. "Carlee had such a love for life and she thought of it as such a gift that the fact that because of her I can be doing this, there's still good coming out of Carlee Wines," Liz said. Liz found out that the person in need of her marrow was a 15-year old girl with E-Plastic Anemia, and she needed it quickly. "I basically went straight to coach and let her listen to the message where they said, 'you can be the answer to this girl's prayers,' as if that didn't put enough pressure on me. But I knew I wanted to do it, but I really wanted to check with coach," Liz said. Coach Jennifer Sanford-Wendry says she encouraged Liz to go ahead with the procedure. "To me, this is something for Liz that when you say what did you do in college, this is a pretty big thing that most people don't have the opportunity to do," she said. The odds of finding a donor at a bone marrow drive is about 1 in a thousand. Liz relished the opportunity, but says the procedure was not without some pain. "For the first, I would say, 4 or 5 days, I couldn't walk correctly," Liz said. "Basically, they force the needle through my bone. They actually had some trouble with me, apparently my bones are kind of hard which is good for me, bad for them. It actually takes quite a lot of force and they had two doctors going at once on either side of my back. There's 200 holes in my bone but there's four in my skin, basically they move the skin with the needle." Two months after the procedure, Liz says she still feels pain when the weather gets cold, but it's all worth it. "It seems a small price to pay for what could be coming out of it," she said. A representative from the Gift of Life says girl's survival chances are very good. Liz will even get a chance to meet the girl in a year, but she's taking it all in stride. "I think when I know she's okay I'll have that feeling. Like everyone is like, you're a hero, I don't know. I don't really feel that yet. I think it'll hit me more when I know she's fine," Liz said. |
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