Today, I worked on a project to raise awareness/donors for someone who used to work at my company until recently (early May), when she had a relapse of Leukemia. Essentially, she needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. While she doesn’t necessarily need an Asian or Vietnamese match, the Asian (and ethnic minorities) account for less than 1% of those registered in the National Bone Marrow registry.
I’m not necessarily somoene to champion a cause (besides http://www.chimphaven.org), but as I was working on this project for work, and getting to know a little bit about Michelle, I was struck by something she wrote in her blog — about how after getting through the cancer the first time around, life had seemed to be changing for the better — she was getting back to work, her bf got into B-school, etc. They were excited about starting new chapters in their lives and that is something I can identify with. After putting so much into trying to make life “work,” it must be devastating to have to put your life on hold once more. It has made me that much more thankful, grateful, excited, happy, hopeful (and yes, still paranoid) to have the Life I have now.
Anyway, this is her site. They are trying to find a donor match by end of June:
http://www.projectmichelle.com/
Registering is simple and fairly painless, as is the actual act of donating a marrow. I registered about 5 years ago, and I believe the entire thing took less than 15 minutes.Spread the word, register, do whatever you can.
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