Area home makeover to air Sunday: ABC, nonprofit help transplant recipient, family

Be The Match Foundation hopes that ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s” completion of a new home for leukemia survivor Joey Stott and her family of Lena will increase awareness of the nonprofit organization’s mission.

Joey, a 34-year-old wife and mother of three, received a life-saving bone marrow transplant in 2004. The episode, to air on Sunday, will share Joey’s inspiring story – and will also help shed light on the financial hardships transplant patients and their families face.

While a bone marrow transplant can be a life-saving treatment for many patients, the costs take a toll on families, as the Stotts know all too well. Often there is the temporary loss of at least one income, and even with insurance, not all costs are covered.

“I didn’t think about the medical bills while in the hospital, and my husband didn’t either, but there was a lot to think about when I got home,” Joey said. The Stott family is still paying off $40,000 in medical bills left after insurance.

To help patients who need financial support, Be The Match Foundation raises money to
provide grants that cover costs related to their transplant and recovery. In collaboration with “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” the foundation is kicking off a campaign to raise $1 million in patient assistance funds so more patients and their families can focus on healing.

“‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ and the volunteers in Lena donated their time, energy and resources to help rebuild the Stott family home and give them a new life together,” said Christine Fleming, president of Be The Match Foundation. “Thousands of patients like Joey are also struggling to overcome the health and financial obstacles resulting from a marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant. We appreciate that ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ is raising awareness of this important issue and hope that the public will step forward to help patients.”

Joey’s story also illustrates the need for more potential marrow donors. Like 70 percent of
patients in need of a transplant, Joey had no donor match in her family. She turned to the Be The Match RegistrySM, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, and relied on the kindness of a stranger – Tom Wilhelm of Colorado Springs, Colo. – to save her life.