One of my fellow Los Angeles Poker Bloggers, StudioGlyphic (who won the WPBT Winter Classic last December) is looking for some help for one of his friends, whose girlfriend is very sick with cancer, and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. The odds of finding a donor match are about 1:20,000, but this girl’s odds are even longer because she is Fillipino:
Medically, the only option Christine has left is a Bone Marrow
Transplant. The survival rate of this procedure is 30-40%. Of those who
do survive the procedure itself, only 50% survive the next two years.
However, if she does survive those two years, it means the cancer won’t
come back.This is a pretty terrible option. However, the non medical option is
also horrible. Her doctor says that if she chooses not to have the Bone
Marrow Transplant, she’ll be dead within a year.This is hard enough for the average person. There
are over 20,000 types of bone marrow, so the average person has a 1 in
20,000 chance of finding a match. These numbers are even worse for
Christine. Because she is Filipino, she needs to find a donor of the
same ethnic background, and there are hardly any Filipinos on the
National Registry.Because we caught the cancer early, right now is our best chance of
having the Bone Marrow Transplant work. Every day we lose her chances
of surviving drop.So please, contact your friends, and ask them to contact their
friends. Anyone you know who is Filipino and between the ages of 18 and
61 is a potential donor. The system is nationwide, so it doesn’t matter
where they live. Signing up on the registry is easy and painless. All
it requires is a simple blood test. Some hospitals charge a small fee
for this blood test, however if your friends contact me directly, I can
put them in touch with one of the hundreds of local organizations that
will do the blood test for free. They can use this email address:You can reassure your friends that signing up for the registry does
not require donating any bone marrow. If it turns out they are a match,
they will be contacted, and can make the decision at that point about
becoming a donor.There are lots of misconceptions about donating bone marrow. (I know
I was terrified of doing it before I learned how minor the procedure
actually is.) The procedure is simple and safe. You will be
anesthetized the whole time, so you will not feel anything. When the
procedure is over, you may have some soreness in the area for a few
days and you may feel a little tired. That’s it. The bone marrow you
donate is replenished within 3-4 weeks. And again, you will only
undergo this procedure if your blood sample shows that you are a match
and you decide to donate, in which case the slight soreness you’ll be
feeling will be saving someone’s life.All medical expenses for the donor will be covered by Christine’s
insurance. And as I mentioned before, if they contact me directly, I
can put them in touch with an organization near them that will put them
on the National Registry for free and also make sure they are listed as
a Sponsor for Christine.
Even if you aren’t a match yourself, and even if you can’t personally help Christine, please link to this post, and spread the word around. I know there are about a million of you who read this lame blog every month, and if just half of you make some effort to spread the word around, we may be able to help save Christine’s life.
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As a registered marrow donor, I can tell you that it’s as easy to register as it is to give blood. If you are lucky enough to match someone in the database, you will be given the rare opportunity to save one person’s life on this planet. I can think of no gift more generous.
My mother was a bone marrow transplant coordinator in Vancouver BC for many years. The donor registry is international, not just US, so it’s not limited to American readers.
Interested Canadians can go to http://www.bloodservices.ca for more information on signing up.
Bone Marrow Donor Needed
There is an article up at WWdN: In Exile about a lady that needs a bone marrow donor. Part of the challenge of finding a donor is the lady is Fillipino. The bone marrow donor must be of the same ethnic background. If you know somebody of Fillipino decent
Cross-Posted on tribe, myspace, and friendster. Hopefully they’ll get around a little that way, too.
I’m posting something on my blog tonight although I don’t get many readers. http://princessladybug.blogspot.com/
I also already emailed everyone in my address book. I will do the same from work on Monday morning.
And bless you Wil for helping to get the word out. You are such a wonderful friend!
Done and done.
My aunt is actually Filipino and my little cousin is half filipino.
I will call my aunt in san diego and talk to her about it.
and Of course I am reproducing your entry in my blog.. tho no one actually reads it 😛
A question about blood donation/marrow donation. Why does the nationality have to be a match? Does this mean that Hapas have to get matched with other hapas, or can they match to either ethnicity of their parents? It seems rather strange to me.
I’ve been on the Registry since January of 1997 and would like to concur with Shane’s point. It doesn’t take long to get added to the registry and is truly no more of an ordeal than donating blood.
And you might make someone else’s life better as a result of it.
Please consider adding your Type to the registry.
My boyfriend is Filipino. I’ll ask him if he’s willing to get tested.
Hey
Just to let you know i posteed it onto digg.com. I strongly suggest everybody go there and digg it soit gets on the front page and more peoplw will see it. Best of luck to your friends.
I’m already on the list, have been for over 11 years now. Because I’m half Mexican and Half White, I was told I’m a rare match, but if anyone is out there, they can have as much marrow as they need.
Here’s the link to Digg, so all y’alls can up the rating and get it on the front page.
http://www.digg.com/science/Seeking_a_potential_Marrow_Donor
A helpful resource along with traditional treatment is http://www.doctoryourself.com. Particularly when cancer is in the early stages it can be also effectively treated with very high doses of vitamin C, as proven by two time Nobel Peace Prize winner Linus Pauling. Along with anything else helpful I’d suggest this through seeing a solid nutritionist besides oncologists. And one of my uncle’s friends beat lung cancer with the help of daily green tea.
I’m a blood and marrow donor myself and know how important this is. I certainly hope everything works out for the best. I’ve also made a comment about it in my blog: http://chandlerssecrets.blogspot.com/
I had the wonderful oppurtunity to donate bone marrow to a 3 year old last year and I have to agree with the info posted above that the procedure generated very little pain. I didn’t even need any perscription medicine, just regular tylenol a few times a day. I think it hurt more when they removed the pressure bandage from where they extracted the bone marrow than anything else (I guess I got a free waxing in that area). I haven’t experienced anything as rewarding in my life than being able to help someone in this way.
Wow, this has sure gotten around, I first saw this about three weeks ago – these folks are friends of a friend – please be aware that http://www.marrow.org is the national registry.
This is Christine’s boyfriend, Jake. Thank you so much, Wil, for posting this for us. The response has been wonderful– but we still have a long way to go. We estimate that we need to get 20,000 Filipinos registered to have a chance at a single match.
Any Filipino or part Filipino is a potential match! So thank you, and please keep spreading the word.
You can also check out Christine’s website: http://www.savechristine.com
I just e-mailed my one and only Filipino friend. But he has a whole family, and friends…so hopefully the story will spread and they’ll get tested.
Lets see, my DeadDournal gets little to no reader activity that Im aware of, but i think my LiveJournal gets more, so maybe someone will see it. Good luck!
I don’t get a huge amount of traffic, but I did post this on my LiveJournal ( http://hellziggy.livejournal.com/ ) so hopefully it will get more people to register.
Kenyon, you were wondering why the nationality had to match?
Basically it is because many of the human leukocyte antigens (HLA) that must be matched are inherited, so they tend to follow ethnic bloodlines.
A non-Filipino match is possible, but so is winning the Powerball. The odds are just not on your side.
~Sharon
Thanks for the re-post, Wil.
WWdN: In Exile: Seeking a potential Marrow Donor
Excerpt:
WWdN: In Exile: Seeking a potential Marrow Donor
One of my fellow Los Angeles Poker Bloggers, StudioGlyphic (who won the WPBT Winter Classic last December) is looking for some help for one of his friends, whose girlfriend is very sick with c…
I am pretty much clueless when it comes to linking and trackback etc. so I just reposted this on my livejournal.
I hope that someone who can help comes forward.
that’s great of you to help.
all the best prayers she finds a doner.
Thanks for posting this – I’ll post in my lj, my myspace account & in my myspace groups. I’m already registered with the Bone Marrow Transplant network. Anyone here in college – see if you can get a drive going on campus! I hope that a donor is located – please keep us posted.
I’m not American, nor am I Filipino, but you have inspired me to register myself on Canada’s bone marrow list. I had no idea it was so easy to do. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I pray for your friends’ full recovery.
I posted a link to this blog entry on my favorite Scrapbooking message board. It’s a huge community of folks with big hearts, and I hope they can spread the word too. I hope Christine gets help!
Thank you Wil for cross posting this. I am a bone marrow transplant nurse and I have seen some pretty last minute matches come through for patients and some who have never found a donor. I would also as EVERYONE who reads this to consider giving the gift of blood and platelets, the average transplant patient can need dozens if not hundreds of transfusions during the chemotherapy and transplant process. I’ll be posting this to my blog as well.
Posted on http://suchnone.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the post Wil. I’m Filipino, as are a lot of my friends. This is now re-posted on my blog and I’ve emailed about how to get registered.
I’ve always seen the tables to register as a bone marrow donor at all these Filipino events I’ve been to for the last 7 years. Sad to say that I, and lot of other people, keep walking by. Having a story to go with the table helps a lot when getting people to register.
Filipino Bone Marrow Donor Needed
I was reading WWDN earlier and I came across this article.
I emailed the person referenced, asking him to send me the information I need to see if I could be a donor match.
…
I have nowhere to link to, but I’ll keep it in mind. A good friend at work, who thought she had beaten the big C, told me last Monday that her cancer had come back. This will be her third round of treatments and she’s only 35. What amazes me is her attitude, very optimistic etc that once she beats it this time that this will be it. I guess attitude is the key.
Your post gave me some new info on the proccess, thanks.
I’m writing, and this may be an obvious point, to say that when life is at stake, it’s important to think globally, not just in the particular country you happen to be in at the moment. A donor might be found in, e.g., the Phillipines, and the work might be done in India. Not so much because it’s 90% cheaper, even with plane tix, but because the US does a lot to inhibit cutting edge medical practice. For some things, the US is the best place to go (or be), but it’s important to consider a world of options.
I’m sure all three… no, wait, four of my regular readers will be interested to hear about this… good luck.
My (non-Filipino) wife wanted me to let you know that she is already in the registry and that she has passed the message on to the only Filipino that she knows.
See you on the felt.