Brian And Becky:

Cadet's Illness Alters Sister's Life

Becky Metz of White Bear Lake thought to herself: Hey, girl, you picked a fine time to break down.

Becky Metz, who has been the coolest of the cool, was on a stage in Hollywood Park, Calif., one night last week when she began crying as a choir sang and 20,000 Koreans cheered for her brother, Brian Bauman.

Brian is the 22-year-old Korean-born Air Force Academy cadet who needs a bone marrow transplant if his life is to be spared from the leukemia that was diagnosed last fall. Brian is now in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Seattle awaiting a transplant later this month or early in July.

"No matter how it comes out for Brian," Becky says, "I'll be in this for life. His illness and the international need for bone marrow donors have changed my life.

"Korea was a place on the map before," she says. "After all they've done for Brian, I think of Koreans as my brothers and sisters now. And that's what I was thinking when I cried for Brian on that stage in California."

She was a special guest at a benefit concert June 4 by Roo'Ra, one of the biggest rock groups in Korea. The concert, to benefit Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches, was a sellout and the latest example of the extraordinary interest Koreans have taken in bone marrow transplants since Brian's special need became public in December.

Brian was adopted in 1977 at age 3 by Becky's parents, Steve and Elaine Bauman of Pine City, Minn. Last fall, he began his senior year at the Air Force Academy and was to become an aeronautical engineer and pilot after his graduation this spring. Then last Halloween, he was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

His best chance for survival is through a marrow donation from a blood relative, and the search became the international mission of a Korean television station. A biological half-sister came forward in April and was flown to the United States for testing, but she was an unsuitable match.

Brian's dream of becoming a pilot had been shattered, and Brian had to watch from the sidelines this spring as his class graduated from the academy.

But the search for an unrelated donor apparently has paid off. Brian's bone marrow will come from a male donor from Korea who is in his mid-20s and was located through the Korean Bone Marrow Registry and identified as a South Korean soldier and a perfect non-biological match. The number of Koreans who've volunteered for the registry is overwhelming, Becky says, given the cultural taboos among some older Koreans against medical transplants.

The desperate need for bone marrow donors was dramatized in the last few months by the illnesses of Brian Bauman and Michelle Carew, the 18-year-old daughter of Minnesota Twins great Rod Carew. But Michelle's donor never did materialize, and she died in April. Her death, Becky says, has seemed to make the public more determined than ever to support Brian and other leukemia victims.

Becky, 32, grew up on the East Side of St. Paul. She has two young daughters and a husband named Dave. Last week, she found herself facing about 20 TV cameras and microphones at a news conference in Los Angeles in a language she didn't understand. Her life has changed since last Halloween.

"I don't know the language, but I know love. We have a jar at home that we're putting pennies and nickels in, and someday -- I don't know when -- we're going to Korea as a family to thank all our brothers and sisters."

Brian's marrow transplant will occur in Seattle, after which he will be hospitalized 100 days.

Next fall, Becky says, Brian will re-start his senior year at the Air Force Academy. And the following spring he will graduate with his new class, the Class of 1997.