The BulleTin • Sunday, april 18, 2021 A5
STATE & REGION
By chance, Oregon woman’s blood cells could save a life
BY TOM HALLMAN JR.
The Oregonian
A woman dying of a rare
form of blood cancer has a
chance at life because of what
happened in January after a
letter arrived at a West Linn
home, addressed to someone
who no longer lived there.
It is a journey full of flukes,
long odds and what-ifs, one
that began four years ago at
Oregon State University when
Natalie Maestretti, then a stu-
dent, happened to be walking
through the Memorial Union
Quad, the heart of the cam-
pus. She noticed people talking
with students.
She stopped and heard these
people asking students if they’d
be potential bone marrow and
blood donors. She decided she
would. She signed up. Some-
one swabbed the inside of her
mouth to gather her cells, and
she was on her way in two
minutes.
She graduated, and her par-
ents later sold the family home
in West Linn. Now 24, Mae-
stretti had moved to Portland
to work as a recruiter for a
health care company when the
letter, addressed to her, arrived
at her old family home. The
new homeowner wasn’t sure
what to do with it. She could
toss it out, but contacted Mae-
stretti’s parents to make sure
she got it. When she opened it,
Maestretti found a letter and
sheet of instructions that made
her remember that stop on the
Oregon State Quad.
The letter said Maestretti
was a perfect match for a
woman in her 30s who was dy-
ing. Was she still interested in
donating her blood cells to save
this woman’s life?
“Of course,” she said. “It was
surreal. It’s crazy to think how
interconnected we are in this
world.”
A registry of 11 million donors
The people who had come
to OSU in 2017 were affiliated
with DKMS, a nonprofit bone
marrow donor center based in
Germany, with offices in the
United States and cities around
the world.
Each year, agency recruiters
visit college campuses to edu-
cate and ask young people to
register with DKMS, said Koren
Karlovic, a Portland-based re-
cruiter whose territory is college
campuses west of the Mississippi
River. Donors are eligible to be
on the list at 18. And since do-
nors stay on the list until they
are 61, she said, college students
are critical as they remain po-
tential candidates for decades.
“Last year was tough for us,”
she said. “All the college cam-
puses were closed because of
COVID-19. We are hoping to
get back as soon as they reopen.”
A patient’s doctor, she said,
first tries standard medical pro-
cedures, chemotherapy and ra-
diation. If that doesn’t work, a
STATE BRIEFING
Lawmaker accused of
misconduct out as chair
An Oregon state represen-
tative has volunteered to step
down as a committee chair af-
ter being accused of miscon-
duct by another lawmaker.
Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clats-
kanie, was accused of sexually
harassing a colleague Mon-
day. Witt temporarily removed
himself as leader of the House
Natural Re-
sources panel.
He said he
believes he
will be ex-
onerated but
would not
function as
Witt
committee
chair until an
investigation was finished.
The bipartisan House Com-
mittee on Conduct on Friday
had declined an investiga-
tor’s recommendation that
the panel require Witt to step
down.
In a statement, House Re-
publican Leader Christine
Drazan slammed the conduct
panel’s decision not to order
Witt to give up his committee
leadership position.
“Allowing the accused to
choose the actions they will
voluntarily take to protect their
victim is not how this process
should work,” Drazan said.
OHSU to pay $2,000-plus
per hour for investigation
Investigators, including for-
mer U.S. Attorney General Eric
Holder, will be paid as much
as $2,000 per hour or more to
look into claims of sexual ha-
rassment, racism, discrimina-
tion and retaliation at Oregon
Health & Science University.
OHSU announced it had
hired Holder and his law firm,
Covington & Burling, late last
month.
The announcement came
about a month after an em-
ployee filed a federal lawsuit
against a doctor at OHSU for
sexual assault — and against the
institution itself, claiming that
employees had not followed Ti-
tle IX reporting protocol.
Another lawsuit followed, by
a woman against an OHSU an-
esthesiology resident alleging
sexual battery, false imprison-
ment and infliction of emo-
tional distress.
In a statement earlier this
month, OHSU leaders said lit-
igation against the institution
and its employees was only one
reason for the investigation —
the broader purpose is to ex-
amine the teaching hospital’s
culture as a whole.
“This investigation will take
a deep dive on these matters
and I firmly believe it’s what
we need to uncover the root
causes and make the appropri-
ate cultural changes,” OHSU
Board Chair Wayne Monfries
said during a board of directors
meeting Friday.
According to the contract
between Covington & Burl-
ing and OHSU obtained by
OPB, Holder’s hourly rate is
$2,295. The contract states that
the firm agreed to discount its
hourly rates by 10% for OHSU.
“We will design a survi-
vor-centered, trauma-in-
formed investigative work-
plan based on our professional
judgment and provide to the
University our independent
findings and recommenda-
tions once we have reached
them,” the contract, signed by
Holder, states.
OHSU leaders say campus
community members will be
able to share their experiences
and observations with investi-
gators.
OHSU said it expects the in-
vestigation to take at least six
months.
— Bulletin wire reports
stem cell or bone marrow trans-
plant is the only option. A doc-
tor first looks within the patient’s
family, specifically, a sibling with
the same genetic coding.
“About 25% of the time they
find a match,” she said. “When
they don’t, they have to look in
the international pool of do-
nors and they come to us from
around the world.”
The donor’s cells must be a
match with the patient’s im-
mune system, or the new cells
will be rejected, she said. A
computer system analyzes all
11 million potential donors,
looking for protein markers in
the donor that match, or closely
match, markers in the patient.
The registry, when con-
tacted, begins looking through
all donors, seeking the closest
possible match.
“It truly is a needle in a hay-
stack,” she said. “There is less
than a 4% chance a donor will
ever be contacted.”
Natalie Maestretti was a
match.
‘It was so easy’
Maestretti underwent an ex-
tensive physical to make sure
Ask a
Legal
Professional
she was healthy while DKMS
officials waited to hear from
the patient’s doctor, who was
working to get his patient, bat-
tling acute myeloid leukemia,
in remission long enough to
receive the new cells.
In late February — about a
month after the letter arrived
at her former family home in
West Linn — Maestretti went
to the hospital for a procedure
called apheresis. IV lines were
attached to both arms. One
line extracted blood and sent
it to a machine to separate the
red blood cells, and the other
Send your questions to:
Ask a Legal Professional · Leanna Williams
By email: lwilliams@bendbulletin.com
Or mail: P.O. Box 6020, Bend, OR 97708
ESTATE PLANNING
REAL ESTATE
Question: I was the personal
representative for my father’s estate
and found probate very stressful. How
can I make sure my own children don’t
have to probate my estate after I die?
Answer: Oregon law provides a variety
of
estate planning options that will
Attorney at Law
enable your children to avoid probating
your estate. One of the most common options is the use
of a revocable trust (i.e. a living trust). A revocable trust
operates similar to a will after you die, because it names
who is given your remaining property and in what shares.
However, unlike a will, these distributions are made by
your trustee outside of probate. A revocable trust can
own almost any type of property, including real property,
investment accounts, and bank accounts. Other options
for avoiding probate include owning real estate with
your spouse or another person by right of survivorship,
recording a transfer on death deed for real estate, and/or
naming benefi ciaries to your investment accounts, bank
accounts, and/or retirement accounts. You should work
with an experienced estate planning attorney in order to
determine what options best meet your goals.
Lindsay Gardner
line returned it to her body.
“It was so easy,” she said. “It
took almost nine hours. I had
a choice to read or watch TV. I
watched the whole first season
of ‘The Amazing Race.’”
Maestretti knows only that
the woman who received her
cells is 32 years old and lives
somewhere in the United
States. Without those cells, the
woman would die. The pa-
tient’s doctor will know by June
if the cells were accepted by the
patient’s body.
“I’d love to meet her,” said
Maestretti.
Question: A large part of my neighbor’s
garden is located on my property. I’ve
never objected because my neighbor
gives me lots of fresh vegetables! Is it
possible for him to get the legal title to
this area of my property if I continue to
allow him to use it?
Craig Edwards
Attorney at Law
Answer: Yes, but only if he can show that
he (and/or his predecessors) have used your property for a
total of at least 10 years, continuously, openly, exclusively,
and without the consent of you or your predecessors. He
and his predecessors must have honestly believed that
they owned the property when their use fi rst began, and
at all times during the following 10 years. If the garden
has encroached for fewer than 10 years, a letter alerting
him to the encroachment, and giving him permission to use
it, should protect you. Consult a real estate attorney to
analyze and advise about your specifi c rights and options.
BRYANT, LOVLIEN & JARVIS, P.C.
Attorneys at Law
591 SW Mill View Way, Bend
541-382-4331
FRANCIS HANSEN & MARTIN, L.L.P.
Attorneys at Law
1148 NW Hill Street, Bend,97703
541-389-5010
LONG-TERM CARE
Establish Yourself
as the
Leading Expert
in your Field!
Question: If my spouse needs long-term
care such as assisted living, adult foster
care or memory care which is going to
be a burden on me, how much money
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Medicaid long-term care benefi ts?
Answer: First, the spouse seeking
Medicaid benefi ts can only have
Attorney at Law
$2,000.00 to their name. The well
spouse may keep $25,728 at a minimum and $128,640
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Allowance”). However, there are other benefi ts to the well
spouse such as exempting the value of your home up to
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there are strategies, which the well spouse may take
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the maximum CSRA. I provide a no-charge review to help
you get headed in the right direction.
Will Dennis
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WILL DENNIS
Attorney at Law LLC
“Protecting Seniors and Their Families
from the High Cost of Long-Term Care”
438 NE Irving Avenue, Bend, OR 97701
541-388-3877 • wd@willdennislaw.com
To find out more,
contact Leanna Williams
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lwilliams@bendbulletin.com
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