By Suzanne Laurent
DERRY — Alyssa Brand had a very special visitor in her Derry home last Friday morning.
Brand, 19, met little Giovanni Guglielmo, her inspiration for deciding to be tested as a possible bone marrow donor at a blood drive in January.
Brand recently found out that she is a match for a 4-year-old boy with cancer.
It was Giovanni's father, Michael Guglielmo who convinced Brand how easy it was to be tested and how she may be a future match for a patient.
Giovanni, now 3, has been in the news since he was a baby, and many bone marrow drives have been set up in his name after he was diagnosed with NEMO, a very rare x-linked chromosomal disorder that required a bone marrow transplant. Unable to find a match, Giovanni received a stem cell transplant using blood from an umbilical cord to help him build a new immune system.
When the story of Brand's match was seen on a local television station, Guglielmo was so thrilled and he called Brand last Thursday.
Next thing she knew, Giovanni and his mom Christina Poulicakos-Guglielmo and nurse Linda Dow were at her Derry home to meet Brand in person.
"I'm so happy to finally meet (Giovanni)," Brand said, sitting at her kitchen table last week while Giovanni perched in front of her and tried to feed her his pretzels and other snacks that his mom brought along for the long ride down from Belmont, located in the lakes region.
Brand said when she had her cheek swabbed last January for the bone marrow test at the Derry Police Annual Blood Drive, she never thought she'd be a match. Since finding out that she is, Brand has since gone to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon to learn about the six-to-eight hour medical procedure she will have later this month to extract bone marrow cells from her blood. She will also go through a battery of tests including x-rays, an EKG, vein assessment and many vials of blood.
Brand, a 2008 Pinkerton Academy graduate, attends New Hampshire Technical College in Manchester. She works two jobs, one at Market Basket in Londonderry and one as a licensed nursing assistant at Pleasant Valley Nursing Center in Derry.
"I'd like to go into child psychology," Brand said.
Giovanni's parents have started a campaign called Saving Giovanni's Friends to get more people to have bone marrow testing, which is only a cheek swab.
"We've gone to over 400 drives," Poulicakos-Guglielmo said.
"So far, 27,800 people are listed in the bone marrow registry from these drives and 23 of those have been matches for someone."
Ken Brand is very proud of his daughter.
"She has good values," he said.
Someone else recognizes this as well. Gov. John Lynch personally called Brand to invite her to meet him at the State House in Concord on Aug. 26 and to have a tour.
For more information on Giovanni and how to be tested to be a bone marrow donor, visit www.savegiovannisfriends.org.
