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Friday, December 5, 1997

Former Cowboy Charles Haley battles child's illness

By GRACIE BONDS STAPLES / Fort Worth Star-Telegram

COPPELL, Texas -- For years, Charles Haley was a stalwart defensive end for the Dallas Cowboys, the only National Football League player to round up five Super Bowl rings. Throughout those glory days, Haley showed no fear.

Today he does. Retired from pro football, Haley has been thrust into a game he knows nothing about -- except that losing it could cost his little girl her life.

The leukemia attacking 3-year-old Brianna Haley's body is in remission. But doctors have told Haley and his wife, Karen, that their little girl will need a bone-marrow transplant for a complete recovery. Because no one in their immediate family is a match, the Haleys are looking for a stranger to save Brianna's life.

"It's really tough for me to look at her," Haley said recently. "She doesn't smile. She doesn't talk to me anymore. It's like she's a mummy."

The hunt has propelled the former Dallas Cowboys player back into the public eye and brought renewed attention to the need for more minority marrow donors here and across the country.

During Haley's football heyday, the family tried to avoid intense press coverage -- now, they hope the media can help, by telling Brianna's story.

Haley, who retired because of a back injury, is used to pain. But it is a different matter when the pain is his daughter's.

"It's hard, very frustrating that you can't do anything," he said. "The only thing we can do is rely on the good deeds and prayers of others."

Haley said he dreads going home these days; it is tough to even look at Brianna.

"But I go," he said. "If nothing else, I can let her know that Daddy loves her. And I can be there for the rest of my family to lean on."

She's just 3, so it is hard to say how much Brianna Haley understands about the leukemia that is sapping her body of energy and tainting her taste buds.

But Nana, as she calls herself, knows she is sick.

Three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Brianna undergoes chemotherapy to keep the leukemia at bay. The medicine upsets her stomach, so she hardly ever eats anymore. She suffers from diarrhea, hair loss and mood swings.

Nana won't tell you that. But the tear stains on her face speak volumes.

"I realize the treatment must be aggressive, but it's really hard on her," her mother said as she held Brianna close. "She's sick for the first 24 hours after -1/8chemotherapy-3/8 and then she has to go in again and it starts all over."

This has been going on for more than five months, but the Haley family takes it one week at a time. Looking ahead seven days, Karen Haley said, is all they can handle. But that doesn't mean they're giving up.

Charles and Karen Haley have embarked on an aggressive campaign to find a donor for their daughter and to increase the number of minorities on the National Marrow Donor Program registry.

A drive earlier this month for Brianna at Texas Stadium, officials with the National Marrow Donor Program said, garnered the single largest African-American turnout ever in the United States.

"There was a total of some 1,600 people, and of those over 1,000 were African-American," said Shannon Murray, media coordinator for the program at Carter BloodCare.

Murray credited the huge turnout to Charles Haley's popularity.

"Usually, these drives are held for someone that nobody knows," she said. "But he's someone who comes into people's living room, so people feel like they know him."

In a recent interview, Haley thanked fans for the Texas Stadium turnout. He knows full well that Brianna's life probably depends on someone her family has never met.

"You need a total stranger to step in and make your day," he said. "But we're not sitting around and waiting for that to happen."

Haley participated in another marrow drive Monday in San Francisco, and a third drive, sponsored by V100 and KHVN Radio, will be from noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and from 1 to 7 p.m. Sunday at the Dallas Market Hall, 2100 Stemmons Freeway.

The drive is being organized in conjunction with the annual "For Sisters Only" cultural event, which focuses on the lifestyle and career needs of African-American women, and includes a $5 admission fee.

Because the characteristics of bone marrow are inherited from parents, the best match is usually from a sibling. The next best thing is a match between members of the same race, because marrow transplants require matching types of tissues with complex genetic traits.

Yet of the nearly 3 million potential donors listed on the National Bone Marrow Registry, only 7.5 percent are African-American. Nearly 80 percent are Anglo.

At any given time there are more than 3,000 people searching for marrow donors, Murray said. Minorities rarely find donor matches.

"We've worked with many -1/8minority-3/8 patients who have not survived their search for a donor," she said. "With that in mind, it's really important for us to be able to increase the number of minorities on the registry."

Education, Murray and others believe, is the first step in accomplishing that goal. Otherwise, families such as the Haleys learn about the lack of minority donors the hard way.

"I had no idea there was such a shortage," Karen Haley said. "I had no idea -1/8Brianna-3/8 would get so sick. Until now, all of -1/8our-3/8 kids have been healthy. This was like out of the blue. There wasn't a lot of warning."

For a few days prior to the dreaded diagnosis last May, Brianna suddenly seemed tired all the time. She had no appetite and was running a low-grade fever.

Simple things such as riding her bicycle and playing outdoors with her brother, C.J., and sister, Princess, physically exhausted her.

After the diagnosis of leukemia, Brianna was immediately admitted to the hospital. She stayed for a week, and has been undergoing chemotherapy ever since.

"She was a busy body," Karen Haley said of Brianna. "Now we do quiet things, finger paint and read lots of books. We don't get out much because she doesn't have the energy."

But with a mother's certainty, she said she believes Brianna will be her energetic self again. Results are still being entered into the National Marrow Donor Program's registry to determine if there is a match for Brianna from the Texas Stadium drive.

"We should know in three to four weeks if there was a match from the drive," Karen Haley said. "I have to believe that there will be."

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Distributed by The Associated Press