Parole agent battles rare blood cancer

Eric Barker thought he was in the clear.

In 2002, the Bountiful man was only the 27th person in Utah to be diagnosed with aplastic anemia. Doctors told him his bone marrow was failing to produce the red blood cells his body needed to survive. He was awaiting a bone marrow transplant when he began to show improvement after undergoing chemotherapy.

"The chemotherapy put him in remission," said Barker's wife, Tammie. "They stopped looking for a donor."

During the intervening years, with the illness apparently behind him, Barker returned to his job as an Adult Probation & Parole agent. He and Tammie focused on raising their daughter and son. The family grew closer than ever, spending time together at University of Utah football games or on the golf course.

Eric Barker thought he was in the clear.

He was wrong.

Last year — after two years without an exact explanation of what was wrong with him — Eric was diagnosed with myleodisplastia or MDS, a rare form of blood cancer. His body was killing off his red blood cells faster than his bone marrow can produce them, doctors told the Barkers.

Eric now lies in a bed at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston awaiting a bone marrow transplant that is scheduled to take place Tuesday. Tammie lives with him in his room, sleeping on a chair that folds out into a bed.

"It's a shock your first time — ignorance is bliss, if that makes sense — you don't know what you're headed for," she said. "This time, though, we know how scary it's going to be and it's another rare one."

Eric's doctors in Texas believe that, ironically, treatment he received to overcome aplastic anemia may have brought on the MDS that has ravaged his body.

"They don't give us a clear prognosis because everything's rare with Eric and everyone responds to a transplant differently," Tammie told the Deseret News.

"They say 'if,' " she said. "How they described it to us is that they bring him to death's door and then they hope to bring him back through the transplant. But it's a long road."

Part of that "long road" is coping with the separation from the couple's teenage children, who are being cared for in Utah by their grandmother.

The Barkers had to leave for Texas on the kids' first day of school. They'll miss other milestones, like their daughter's first high school homecoming dance, during the 100 days they must live within minutes of the hospital.