/ 202 KIDS / for them
Chandler’s
Buchanan Boys
Brotherhood, bone marrow and bonding
by Kimberly Hosey
hen he was little, Jonathan
Buchanan lugged around a
bandaged stuffed dog so he
could “practice medicine.”
“Each day that thing would have a new
bandage,” says Kristine Buchanan, his
mother. “He said he was going to find the
cure for sickle cell disease.”
Jonathan had good reason to care about
the condition. His older twin brothers,
Joshua and Jordan, now 16, both have it.
Jonathan, now 14, did play a huge role
in curing his brothers, just not in the way
he expected.
Rather than finding a cure, “Jonathan
ended up being the cure,” Kristine says.
Kristine discovered her twins had
sickle-cell anemia when they were 17
days old. The hereditary disease causes
red blood cells to take on a sickle shape,
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preventing them from flowing easily
through blood vessels. It causes severe
pain and exhaustion. Life expectancy is
often cut in half for those with sickle-cell
anemia, though treatments have improved
vastly in recent years.
Despite all of this, Kristine was
initially leery of the possibility of bone
marrow transplant, which might allow
her sons’ bodies to begin producing
healthy blood cells.
“We thought it was more of an
experimental death sentence,” she says.
Fortunately, they soon learned
differently. Dr. Dorothea Douglas at
Phoenix Children’s Hospital gave
a talk about the treatment, and the
Buchanans decided it was worth testing
to see if any of Kristine’s healthy sons
(she also has two older sons) was a
“(Jonathan) said he was going to
find the cure for sickle cell disease.
(He) ended up being he cure.”
202 magazine / october 2013 / 202magazine.com
—Kristine Buchanan