Mai Duong is a 34-year-old woman from Montreal who is fighting for her life. Last year, she was diagnosed with acute leukemia, and beat it. But 10 months after being given a clean bill of health, she relapsed. Leukemia. "For the second time, because life's a bitch." But she is not going down without a fight.
Leukemia patient calls on visible minorities to donate stem cells
Mai, the mother of a 4-year-old, is currently in the hospital receiving chemotherapy treatment, but her chances of survival will be greatly increased by a stem cell donation, either through cord blood or a bone marrow transplant -- most likely, from a compatible donor of Vietnamese descent, like herself.
Unfortunately, only 19 percent of bone marrow donors in Quebec are non-white. And just one percent of the bone marrow registry is composed of Vietnamese people. Mai's brother, who had a 30 percent chance of matching, was not a match. So she's turning to you, good people of the internet, to get the word out.
