[geedee]

Come one, come all. I'll credit anyone who can help.

Thanks, geedee.

[hellinahandcart]

Just make one up. They've been doing that on the soaps for decades. See "suspension of disbelief". ;D

[geedee]

Do you know where I might get some help on this? I know you're not a doctor but you've been around FR longer than moi.

[BibChr]

...a disease where a dying female offspring requires a bone marrow transplant where a parent, preferably the father, is the ideal donor. ...the key is the father MUST be able to donate what's required and remain conscious. ...the father is the boogie man and the mother is the heroine and the father blackmails the mother to do as he wishes AND in return he promises to be the donor.

Except for the "bone marrow" specific, a feminist might suggest that the disease you're looking for is called "family."

Dan

[LibWhacker]

Don't have a clue and not sure if this is helpful, but when I searched Google on the phrase "father donated his bone marrow," I got one hit that told the story of a 4-yr-old girl who had "severe combined immune deficiency (SCID), which many people know as the 'boy in the bubble' disease."

[bert]

Well, how about Concus laboncus. I used this disease on excuses for college professors for four years and was excused ever time..... Even on major exams.

As a kicker, add a little drug reaction as with penicillin or such.

[Gman]

Liberalism comes to mind as an apropos disease...

[veronica]

Well . . . that's why I'm asking for your help! So if anyone can help this writer-wannabe -- it is a helluva story by the way -- I sure need it. This is all I need before I can call the screenplay complete and join the gazillion other dreamers pitching their naive ideas to a shark-dominated Hollyweird.

You have FReepmail.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Can you make it a Grandmother as the reluctant donor instead? I just have grown to dislike, "Daddy as the Villain" type of stories. They are so cliched. But here is one group of diseases you might consider.

Bone marrow transplantation is the only known treatment for a variety of genetic diseases sometimes called "inborn errors of metabolism" or "storage diseases." Each of these diseases is due to the deficiency of a specific substance in the body called an enzyme, which results in the accumulation of toxic chemicals inside the cells. Depending upon the enzyme abnormality and the chemicals that accumulate, specific patterns of tissue damage and organ failure occur. These include central nervous system deterioration, growth failure, bone abnormalities and joint disability, enlargement of the liver and spleen in the abdomen, heart disease, airway obstruction, lung disease, corneal clouding and hearing loss. The eventual organ damage and outcome of the different diseases is quite variable, although the ones in which BMT has been evaluated are those that have a naturally progressive downward course ultimately ending in death in childhood.

I am thinking the father as the carrier and he got the gene from his father but his mother would not have the gene.

(I am not a doctor and I do not play one on TV)

[sonofatpatcher2]

Gad, a fellow screenwritier here. You know, of course, we'll never get our work bought, much less filmed unless we hid our politics.

BTW, been to Zoetrope yet? One of my scripts was rated among the three best one month and not a single offer came my way. Guess you cannot have God and family values a vital part of a script nowadays, eh?

[expatpat]

Does it have to be bone marrow? Wouldn't a kidney transplant work just as well?

[Tijeras_Slim]

YAWS.

[Solamente]

If I were you, I'd get out of the bone marrow business and pitch a "spontaneous human combustion" angle. The kid can't excrete phosphorus because of her mom's bad genes, and the only the father's genes are compatible and tweakable!

Hope that helps....

[handk]

70,000 screenplays registered with the WGA (Writer's Guild of America) per year, of which only 400 per year are produced -- 240 with the majors and 160 with the indies.

Good luck.

[DefCon]

"...the mother is the heroine
and the father blackmails the mother to do as he wishes..."
- - -
Oh, great, another "dad is the bad-guy" story.
- - -
Gee, how original...
That's a new twist...

NOT !

[John Robertson]

"I'll credit anyone who can help."

You'll share credit, willingly? What kind of screenwriter are you!?

Seriously, if I can say this without sounding insufferable (and I probably can't), you seem to have hung your whole tale on this must-be exacty gizmo-thingy-device whatever--if you can't come up with the perfect maguffin (and yes, I know I'm misusing that slightly), your whole story can't stand. May I suggest that it sounds from here as if you've built your whole story from the outside in, rather than the inside out? Here's one for you: What do you have, in terms of character relationships, if you throw out the disease altogether?

Just thoughts from your precis, from a working pro Freeper with several produced credits.

[y2k_free_radical]

LEUKEMIA will work--lymphoblastic,myeloblastic----consider also EWING's sarcoma

[krb]

If you don't find a disease that you like, you could consider one of the diseases where it has to be a family member, and write it where the mother isn't actually a bio-relative for some reason (surrogate?) and the dad is the only choice.

[Dick Vomer]

I'm sorry but I have to laugh..... if you want to be "picked up" or "developed" you're going to have to be ORIGINAL....

now lets see... what would really get the Hollywood and the Independents frothing would be......... that the bad man father donor IS the REAL MOTHER, who had a sex change opperation and lived his life as a male.

The best part would be if he was a Republican Conservative Christian male ....hypocrite (of course)... then have him have to come to terms with "coming out" and being a "bastard/bitch" (whatever..your choice)..

he/she turns the tables on his hypocritical Republican Christian friends (you pick the denomination... I'd choose Southern Baptist, of course)...

If you can get some digs about 5,000,000 children without health insurance....... ...

And this was all caused by Reagan's bad environmental policy...

..........And the bone marrow disease was one of several hundred thousand illnesses that have occured since May 1st, when President Bush declared an end to hostilities in Iraq..hahahahahhaahha. ...

God I should do a "treatment", huh? hee hee hee... oh yeah for an ending have him push his Chevy Suburban off a cliff and drive off in a Yugo or Electric Car..... (I have got to write this down and mail it in hahahaha)

[PoorMuttly]

Got a hideous one for you:

..............Journalism

[international american]

Good luck on your script. By the way,are you writing this for a general release, or to sell direct to cable, or a network?
Just curious,
IA