Hopes rising for baker

In a bittersweet reversal of roles, Cristina Potito kisses her father goodbye every morning before she heads off to work at Potito’s Bakery during their busiest time of the year.

For years, she had grown accustomed to being on the receiving end of those kisses as her father threw himself into 22-hour shifts during the rush of business that hit the bakery in the weeks before and after Christmas.

Now, a month-and-a-half after receiving a bone-marrow transplant to save his life, Carmen Potito is largely confined to his house and unable to work at the bakery that he ate, slept and breathed for 22 years.

While the adjustment has been a difficult one for everyone in the Potito family, they were nonetheless grateful to have Carmen home for the holidays.

"It’s hard, especially at this time of the year, not to have him at the bakery," said Cristina, 21. "But it was wonderful to have him home. We had a lot to be thankful for this year."

Holiday gatherings seemed too tenuous to plan just four months ago as Carmen lay in Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, fighting the leukemia that he thought he had beaten in 2003.

Doctors told him that he would need a bone-marrow transplant to survive.

When neither of his sisters proved to be a match, Carmen’s cousin, Isabella Corcoran, organized a marrow drive in mid-August that drew more than 400 people and buoyed the baker’s spirits.

However, the event did not yield a match for Carmen, who opted to receive a stem-cell transplant from his own cells as a temporary means to drive his leukemia back into remission.

The next two months were spent in and out of the hospital as he battled infections, and the Potitos were left with little to do but hope and pray for the best — something Carmen practiced from the start.

"I made the decision early on that I was going to fight this and do whatever I had to," he said. "I had to have faith, though. Without it, I don’t think this would have been possible."

The baker added that his spirituality helped him find peace while fueling his belief that a match would eventually be found.

"When you get into a situation like mine, you know you can turn to God," he said. "It’s hard to explain, but I always had this feeling that things would work out, one way or another."

It was mid-October when doctors first told the Potitos that they were close to finding a donor who would be a good match for Carmen.

Though the news was promising, the family — which also includes daughters Briana, 12, and Nicole, 17 — was reluctant to build up their expectations.

"We were very cautious," said Maria Potito, Carmen’s wife. "We were on a roller coaster for a year and a half and we didn’t want to be let down again."

The family declined to tell anyone about the match until Nov. 4, the night before Carmen entered the hospital.

"We didn’t talk about it because we didn’t want to get too excited. We knew that things could change," Cristina recalled.

Carmen said watching his family worry because of his illness has been the hardest part of his ordeal.

"The disease didn’t give me any pain. I experienced the most pain from looking at my children and seeing the pain that they were in as they watched their dad," he said softly. "That’s what I couldn’t handle."

After undergoing a week of rigorous chemotherapy to destroy his existing bone marrow, Carmen received his new marrow on Nov. 12.

The procedure wasn’t "as bad as people think it is," he said, noting that the new marrow was infused intravenously over the course of 10 minutes and not through invasive surgery.

Though the actual transplant process wasn’t all that taxing, there was a large complication: Because his donor wasn’t a 100-percent match, Carmen faced a risk of contracting graft-versus-host disease.

To avoid the deadly disease — which occurs when the transplanted marrow attacks the body — Carmen received his new marrow without its T cells.

As a result, he has been left precariously without an immune system for the last month and mainly restricted to his house and a few visitors.

Maria must closely monitor the health of everyone in the Potitos’ house on the 2500 block of South Garnet Street to ensure that Carmen isn’t exposed to harmful germs or infections.

"It was hard for him not to be able to visit our family or to be at the bakery," said Maria, 44. "But he didn’t question what happened to him. He said, ‘Why not me?’ That’s my husband."

Though it’s not the same as stopping in his beloved bakery or going to a restaurant, Carmen does get out three times a week to Jefferson’s Bodine Center for Cancer Treatment, 111 S. 11th St., to have his blood platelet levels checked.

Carmen interrupted his 46th birthday on Dec 17 for an appointment at the center, where doctors gave him the gift of a lifetime: news that the transplanted marrow had fully engrafted and was functioning fine.

"It was great news and it came on the right day, didn’t it?" he said, the smile apparent in his voice over the phone.

Doctors told Carmen that within the next month or so, he would be able to receive his donor’s T cells, putting him on the road to a full recovery.

"I’d love to get back to the bakery and back to a normal life," he said. "I think things will be different, too. I probably will take time off every now and again just to enjoy the little things, like going for a drive with my wife."

Carmen also is looking forward to the one-year anniversary of his transplant; only then would he be able to meet his donor, according to the Red Cross National Marrow Donor Program’s rules.

For now, all he knows is that his donor is a 22-year-old female.

"We think about her all the time and wonder what happened in her life to make her a donor," Maria said. "She did such a beautiful thing … I just wish we could all do something like that as well."

Carmen said the young woman inspired him to reach out to other cancer sufferers while he was in the hospital and lift their spirits.

"I realized that this is a part of life and that I wasn’t the only oneto have this happen," he said. "The important thing is to never lose focus and never give up."