August 26, 2002

A UConn employee is trying to raise funds for her daughter, who needs a bone marrow transplant.

Joan Jewett, an academic assistant at the Biotechnology Center, is the mother of 28-year-old Heather Jewett, who was diagnosed in 1985 with severe aplastic anemia.

Aplastic anemia is characterized by bone marrow failure: the marrow doesn't make sufficient blood cells. In Jewett's case, all blood cell types - red cells, white cells, and platelets - are diminished in number. This has compromised her ability to fight infection and for her blood to clot effectively after injury.

Several years after her original diagnosis, when Jewett's condition had become life-threatening, she received a transplant of bone marrow from her sister.

Now, 14 years later, she is in need of another transplant. As a teenager, Jewett was covered under her parents' medical insurance. She now works for a small independent business and has no employee heath insurance. Her pre-existing condition made the purchase of private health insurance prohibitively expensive. The cost of the procedure is $150,000, not including follow-up care, medication, or the cost of stimulating and harvesting the bone marrow from her sister. The hospital cannot schedule the procedure until Jewett can show she is adequately funded.

The Jewett family is appealing to relatives, friends, neighbors and associates to help raise the funds for the bone marrow transplant and other medical expenses. A trust fund has been established in Heather Jewett's name, with her father as trustee.

Donations may be sent to: Fleet Bank, 208 Broad Street, Windsor, CT 06095; Attn: Beverly Noble/Heather E. Jewett Trust or C. Everett Jewett, 4 Abby Drive, Hebron, CT 06248. Please designate contributions to the Heather E. Jewett Trust.