Tag: Leukemia

Baby Isaac is battling leukemia & needs your help!

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(H/T Angry Asian Man)

Meet Baby Isaac. Last year, Isaac was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia at just 6 months old, after suffering low-grade fevers and loss of appetite. Devastated by the diagnosis, Isaac’s parents rushed Isaac to the hospital, where has spent the last year bravely undergoing a series of painful treatments, including bone marrow biosies, spinal taps, and chemotherapy. Eventually, Isaac will need a bone marrow transplant to survive.

Write Isaac’s friends and family:

Isaac has been so strong and brave throughout this journey…he’s amazing to see!  Through the multiple bone marrow biopsies, spinal taps, chemotherapy, and numerous medications, he is still touching those around him with his smile and spirit.

None of these medical procedures come cheap, so his family have set up a YouCaring campaign to offset his family’s medical costs. Even if you have just a few dollars to spare, please donate to Team Isaac via YouCaring, a crowd-sourced fundraising website for medical expenses!

In addition, a recent update suggests that the chemotherapy has become less effective for Isaac. Isaac, like many leukemia patients — and particularly those of colour — struggle to find matches in the system, due to the low rates of registration and donation among Asian American, African American and Latino donors.

Asian American leukemia patients on average find a match 73% of the time (compared to nearly 90% for White patients), which demands greater awareness and bone marrow donation registration within our community. Getting registered for a bone marrow donation is very easy:

  1. Go to BeTheMatch.com.
  2. Fill out the form to request a donor packet in the mail.
  3. When the packet arrives, follow the simple directions to painlessly swab your cheeks with the q-tips  and mail the samples back to the lab.

If you are a match, you will be contacted by Be The Match with additional information about how to become a bone marrow donor. You also have the choice at that time to opt out of donating; registering is not a commitment that you must donate.

I’m registered. Why aren’t you?

Act Now! Please help baby Isaac and all the other leukemia patients out there, including some whom we have lost to this devastating disease, by 1) donating to Team Isaac via YouCaring!; 2) registering with Be The Match; and 3) sharing this post with your friends and family!

 

#170in7: Only 24 hours in and already nearly 10% of our donor goal reached!

The #170in7 bone marrow cyberdrive in memory of Janet Liang has only been live for a little over 24 hours, and already we’ve seen an incredible response from the community. As of late Tuesday and early Wednesday morning, we had still more sites partner up to help spread the word — bigWOWO, Kimchi Mamas, and Remembering Vincent Chin.

And on top of that, as of yesterday, we’ve already hit nearly 10% of our donor goal!

Help save a life today and be one of the 170 in 7. Registration is free for the donor, convenient and secure. Here’s how:

  1. Click on the link: http://join.bethematch.org/TeamJanet. Fill out the forms to request a free, do-it-yourself cheek swab kit.
  2. Tweet about it using #170in7 to be counted!  Click the button to send a Tweet to your followers: Tweet 

    If you don’t have a Twitter account, send an email to jenn [at] reappropriate [dot] co to be counted!

For more info, check out this post.

If you’re already registered, please help spread the word by tweeting with #170in7!

Here’s a list of latest #170in7 posts from around the blogosphere:

Tuesday’s Posts (Sept 18):

Wednesday’s Posts (Sept 19):

RIP Janet Liang

Just found out that Janet Liang, the brave young woman whose battle with leukemia  inspired my own registration in the national bone marrow donor registry, has died. After spending the last several years searching for a perfect bone marrow donor match, and helping to register countless new bone marrow donors, Janet received a partial match transplant last week.

Although I only knew Janet through her online persona, Janet was an inspiration. She faced her cancer with courage and optimism, and funneled her energy to register countless folks in the national bone marrow registry, Be The Match. Recently, she received the Spirit of Hope award from A3M.

Janet, we may not have known one another, but I have been indelibly touched by your incredible spirit. You were a beautiful person, inside and out, and the world seems that much greyer without you.

Thank you, Janet, for inspiring us with your courage.

For those of you who haven’t yet, please register to be a bone marrow donor at Be The Match. Bone marrow matches correlate strongly with shared racial identity between donor and recipient, and yet Asian Americans and other minorities remain profoundly underrepresented in the national donor registry. The registration process is simple, painless, convenient and free — and could one day save the life of someone with cancer.

Also, I’m going to take this moment to highlight a great Canadian non-profit organization whose name is oddly appropriate today: Fuck Cancer.