SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) -
A nine year old Shreveport boy remains in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.
Sir'Terrence Mack is battling nasal natural killer t cell lymphoma for the second time.
"The tumor is getting to the point now where it's kind of growing, and spreading, and getting out of hand," says his mother Wadell Hayes.
When we first met Sir'Terrence in December, his family was raising money for expenses related to a bone marrow transplant he was supposed to get in January.
That was postponed, and the donor has now backed out.
"I was really like 'How could somebody just do something like that at the last minute knowing a child really needed it?'" Hayes says.
Now the race is on to find a new donor. His old friends from Centenary College's basketball team are putting on a bone marrow drive Saturday to try to find a match.
"He was an honorary captain for us for our last home game of the year," head coach Adam Walsh tells us.
He says the team has grown fond of Sir'Terrence.
"The last game he was at in January, we were having a timeout and a huddle and he got right in front of me in the huddle and was like patting guys on the head and telling them 'keep working.' It was pretty funny."
Coach Walsh says he expects at least three of his players to get tested. He also plans to get tested himself, and he adds several within the Athletics Department at Centenary are getting tested too.
The testing process is very fast and easy. A potential donor fills out paperwork, and then swabs their cheek. It takes about five minutes.
"If it comes back and they were a match for a patient looking for a donor, they will be contacted for confirmatory testing, and with that they'll be given an option to donate marrow if in fact they are a match," says Tina Martinez with Lifeshare Blood Centers.
"Hosting an event like this is just an opportunity to get the cancer that he's dealing with in the spotlight just a little bit, and the fact that bone marrows are really in need," explains Coach Walsh.
African American donors are in especially high demand.
"...Even though there's more than nine million people on the registry, less than seven percent of those are African American. You have the greatest chance of finding a donor match if you are of the same ethnicity or race," Martinez says.
Copyright 2012 KSLA-TV. All rights reserved.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2012 WorldNow and KSLA, a Raycom Media Station.
