Got this email passed along to me, about a friend of a friend of a friend... Michelle Maykin has been battling leukemia for over a year, and now needs to find a bone marrow match within five weeks. Here's the email recounting her situation:
Hello Everyone,She's got a video message asking for your support here. Also, learn more about her story, and how you can help, here. All it takes is a cotton swab in the mouth and a little bit of paperwork to get registered as a bone marrow donor.
One of my dear friends (Chinese/Vietnamese descent) had been battling Leukemia for over a year. After her 5th round of chemotherapy, her cancer finally "went away." For the past several months she was finally able to live a normal life. However, just this past week, she's relapsed with her blood levels worse off than before. Basically, the doctors have said that she needs to find a bone marrow match for a transplant within 5 weeks. I was wondering if any of you were registered to the donor program already or if you could ask your fellow Asian colleagues, friends, girlfriends, friends of friends, family members, associates, etc. if they've registered.
In the information attached below is a link to sign up for a free take home kit. It takes literally 5 minutes of your time (most of it is spent filling out a form) and a cotton swab of your mouth simply to register. Asians have such a high minority in terms of people in the registry. Finding a match is related to (but not dependent) on specific family ethnic history, and right now alone, odds of finding a match are extremely small. I personally don't like sending these types of E-mails out, especially to my co-workers and associates, but my friends and I are all in panic mode right now and we do appreciate every little bit of help, because it gives us all that much more hope.
Her call: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6878654043721762911&hl=en
Her story: http://www.projectmichelle.com/
Please contact me if you have any questions.
Thank you for your time,
Matt Sun
Please consider getting registered, or better yet, setting up your own bone marrow drive at your school/workplace/etc. Heck, you can even order a free home test kit from the AADP website. I don't think I have to stress how important this is. Please, get registered.
UPDATE: Here's a Stanford Daily story on Michelle's search for a bone marrow donor: Bone marrow donors sought for Cal grad. Stanford students helping a Berkeley grad! Nice.