Urgent: Bone Marrow donors needed

Dear Sangha Friends,
As you may or may not know, the brother-in-law of our dear sangha friend Gloria Kamler has been fighting leukemia since last June. Alan achieved remission for a brief time, but last week the doctors determined that the leukemia had returned.

Alan’s only chance for a full recovery is a bone marrow transplant. But as you may know, only marrow that is a perfect match will be transplanted. And at present there is no potential donor in the international marrow registry who is a match. Moreover, the odds are not good that any two people will match, so the registry needs a large number of potential donors in order to find one for Alan.

So Alan’s family is doing everything they can to find a donor whose marrow will match. We are asking you to have your marrow typed during the bone marrow registry drive that is taking place here in southern California. The test is only a simple cheek swab or a small draw of blood.

For Alan, the timing of this is crucial. He began a new round of chemotherapy this week. If he can achieve a remission again, in about a month, then the transplant should take place at once. To start the process, the potential donor must be tested with in the next 11 days. The upcoming Los Angeles donor drives are on Saturday, March 3rd, 7:00-9:30pm and Saturday, March 10th, 3-5pm.

Please use one of the websites below to see what you need to do to get a test. When you go for a test, bring along some others, if you can.

Alan, Gloria, and her entire family thank you from their hearts.


To find drives in your area, visit:

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Registry/Join_in_Person/
Find_A_Drive/index.html

http://www.dkmsamericas.org/donordrives/

Or contact a local Donor Center to get more information:

http://www.marrow.org/ABOUT/NMDP_Network/Donor_Centers/index.html