Jamie Kelley’s friends have been kidding him that he’ll be more sensitive and feminine after doctors finish with him this week.

That’s because the donor supplying cells for Kelley’s bone marrow transplant is a woman.

The jokes are silly, but they help keep things lighthearted as the 36-year-old Kelley prepares for the procedure, which will make him extremely ill before it potentially rids his body of the leukemia it’s been fighting for the past year.

“I’m kind of worried about being sick,” Kelley said in a phone interview from Seattle, where he’ll undergo the transplant on Wednesday. “I’m kind of a big baby when I’m sick.”

The Journal-World first wrote about Kelley’s search for a bone marrow donor in early July. At that time, two potential donors already had fallen through.

Since he and his wife, Shawn, traveled in late July to an evaluation at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, doctor’s there have tracked down a near-perfect match in a 38-year-old Canadian woman.

The Lawrence couple has been living in Seattle since early September, fitting sight-seeing trips between doctor’s appointments.

Kelley underwent a series of radiation and chemotherapy treatments last week and during the weekend to kill off his unhealthy marrow. He’ll rest today before receiving the new marrow cells on Tuesday.

Then, the fight will be on.

It will take two or three weeks for the new cells to course through Kelley’s body and start to make new blood cells. He will be weak and vulnerable to infection.

There’s a 40 percent chance he won’t survive.

But with any luck, Kelley will be well enough to move back to his Seattle apartment within a few weeks. Doctors and the Kelleys are hoping the couple can return to Lawrence by January.

“Some people recover as quickly as six months,” Kelley said. “Some people take as many as a few years.”

He’s hoping that his history  he never got sick through eight previous rounds of chemotherapy  will bode well for his recovery.

The attitude at the hospital should be good for his spirits as well.

“They want you out of your pajamas when you’re done sleeping and in your clothes and up doing something,” he said. “The less sick you act, you’re likely to be less sick.”

Though the Kelleys are optimistic, they have other worries apart from Jamie’s medical condition. Shawn Kelley’s insurance is paying for the costly procedure and the stay in Seattle, but their rent and other bills in Lawrence are piling up while they’re away. Shawn Kelley can’t work because her husband requires a caregiver throughout the transplant process.

“It is a tough struggle,” she said.

But the Kelleys know they’re in the thoughts and prayers of their friends, many of whom had their own bone marrow tested when they found out Jamie Kelley needed a transplant. They hear from people often.

“We spend a good chunk of the evening calling people back,” Kelley said. “We bought the biggest phone card we could buy.”

One friend wants Kelley, who is trained as a chef, to cater her daughter’s May wedding. He’s determined to be well enough by then to fulfill her request.

“It’s an ambitious goal,” he said, “but it’s a goal.”