Janet Only Has 2 Months to Find a Marrow Donor

I was stunned this morning to discover that Janet Liang, a 24 year old Leukemia patient I became friends with two years ago, had posted a new video on Youtube saying her doctors have told her she only has two months left to find a bone marrow match or it will be too late.

Janet in remission last year and this week after being told she's running out of time.

How can you help?

1. If you aren't already in the bone marrow registry please JOIN NOW. Registering is pain free and donating almost is.

2. If you are in the registry and are contacted please donate. A shocking percentage of those contacted decline to donate when told they are a patient's best match.

3. I know a lot of times we look away because a problem feels too immense or we feel too helpless to do anything about it but there are lots of things you can do to help Janet:

• Email the link to this video http://youtu.be/qSCyz8F_kuo to everyone you know.
• Blog about her. To learn more about Janet visit her website at: http://www.helpingjanet.com/
• Tweet about or retweet this post
• Join her Facebook Group for her latest updates: http://www.facebook.com/helpingjanet
• Print and post the PDF Flyer and tear away tags to help motivate others to help
• Print, post and share the QR code to this video <img src="http://qrcode.kaywa.com/img.php?s=8&d=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FqSCyz8F_kuo" alt="qrcode"  />

Janet desperately needs her story to go viral. Please help me share it to save her life.

Please watch this Youtube video titled "Finding a Perfect Match for Janet - Her Personal Plea." While she says she hasn't lost hope she tearfully opens with her fear of dying and that she doesn't have much time left. Janet was first diagnosed with Leukemia in 2009, achieved remission in 2010 and relapsed just before Christmas in 2011. I try to imagine how that would feel and it makes me want to help as much as I can, any way that I can, so I am reaching out to you hoping you will help me, help Janet.

This is Janet's Flyer. Please print and hang it where ever you can.

Print and post the PDF Flyer and tear away tags to help motivate others to help

This is the QR code to Janet's video on Youtube. Please share it with everyone you know:

Bone Marrow Recipient T-Rex: Laughs, Plays and Lives

Want to join the fight? Be The Match bone marrow donors save lives. Learn more on Be The Match's YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/bethematch

Michelle Maykin Memorial Donation Protection Act (SB 1304)

Cross posted from Team Matthew's Blog:

Call for HELP/ACTION!!! Please help out by passing this message along to your friends and family.

The California legislature recently passed the Michelle Maykin Memorial Donation Protection Act (SB 1304), which is a great victory for its supporters who told their state representatives of this Act’s importance. Now, we need your help in asking Governor Schwarzenegger to sign this bill, which would require all California employers to allow paid leave to anybody who donates their marrow. Until now, work obligations or inability to obtain the necessary time off were one of the largest causes of donors being unavailable to give marrow. The legislation includes the following provisions:

• All California employers will be required to grant an employee a leave of absence up to five days to donate their marrow to another person


• Any period of time taken from work to donate marrow will not be considered as a break in continuous service for the purpose of his or her right to salary adjustments, sick leave, vacation, annual leave, or seniority.


• During any period an employee takes leave to donate, the employer shall maintain and pay for coverage under a group health plan for the full duration of leave.


• An employer may require an employee to take up to five days of earned but unused sick or vacation leave for bone marrow donations, unless doing so would violate the provisions of any applicable collective bargaining agreement.

Please tell the Governor to quickly sign this important legislation, as for every person who called to donate but are unable to, there is a patient who is less likely to receive a life saving transplant. You can send an email to him at http://gov.ca.gov/interact#email or contact him at:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160

Below are some possible talking points that you can include in your letter to the governor. Include them but, if possible, you should also make your message personal. Tell the Governor what marrow donation has meant in your life and why you believe that this legislation is important. This chance to share your story is a very convincing message to the Governor.

Talking points:

• I support the Michelle Maykin Memorial Donation Protection Act, SB 1304, because it will reduce barriers to marrow and organ transplantation by increasing the likelihood that a matched donor is able to donate.


• Each year, 10,000 people are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma which can be treated with a bone marrow transplant.


• Many patients with blood-related diseases search the national Registry of adult volunteer marrow donors to find an unrelated matching donor for transplant. An unrelated transplant may be their best and only hope for a cure, as most people do not have a matching donor in their family.


• Matched marrow donors are often required to miss a few days of work to complete their donation and SB 1304 would make the decision to donate easier by eliminating the potential financial burden caused by missing work.

Jimmie Johnson won the Pepsi Refresh Project!

Thanks to everyone who voted for NASCAR's Jimmie Johnson in the Pepsi Refresh Project. Thanks to you his idea to create pediatric transplant grants for children who need stem cell and bone marrow transplants was voted #1. This means the "Be the Match (aka the National Marrow Donor Program) will receive $100,000 from the Pepsi Refresh Project to help children in need.

Please Vote to Support Kids Undergoing Marrow Transplants

NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson has a dream to provide financial relief for kids undergoing bone marrow transplants through the Be The Match Foundation. Your vote will decide if his idea is funded by Pepsi Refresh. No registration needed. Just click on the vote button under Jimmie's picture. That's him to the left.

Thanks for any help!

CLICK HERE to vote online

4 Year Old Devan is Searching for a Marrow Match

I just found out about 4-year old Devan who has high-risk Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL) a rare type of leukemia. Devan needs to receive a bone marrow transplant within 10 weeks.

Being 1/4 South Indian and 3/4 Northern European, Devan falls into the category of mixed ethnicities that is more challenging to match because for every patient in need, their best chance of locating a match is within their own ethnic group. If you are of two or more ethnicities it usually means needing to find a donor who shares the same ethnicities.

There is still no match for him in the global adult stem cell/bone marrow database. A provisional, partial cord blood match has been located for Devan but his best chance of a successful transplant is to locate a 10/10 match. A partial match can be successful but the odds are not as good as with a full leukocyte match.

If you are of South Indian descent and especially if you are of Indian and Caucasian descent please consider joining the marrow registry in the hopes that you will be Devan's match. You can learn about the two donation methods by CLICKING HERE.

Visit Devan's Website by CLICKING HERE

Joining the registry is just a registration form and 4 cotton mouth swabs that you rub on the inside of your cheeks.

Devan is just one of thousands of sick patients searching for a marrow match so that they can have a chance at having a future. Of the approximately 6000 Americans searching for a match each day because they are suffering from blood cancers like Leukemia and other blood conditions like Aplastic and Sickle Cell Anemia, 70% will not find a match in time. You can help. You might be a match. You might be able to help save a life.

Please CLICK HERE to locate an in-person marrow drive using your zip code

Please CLICK HERE to order a mail-back test kit that will be sent to your home

Be The Match on Youtube

Visit Be The Match's new YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/bethematch. There you will find videos about patients, donors, the donation process, and more.

You can help spread the word about the marrow donor program by posting the latest videos to your blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts!

Bravo's Design by 9 Supports the Bone Marrow Donor Program

Do you watch the Bravo tv show "9 By Design?"

Their next episode airs on Tuesday May 11 at 10:00 PM on Bravo. It's a show that follows the husband and wife property design and developers as they work on multiple projects throughout the season.

I'm sharing this with you because part of the next episode will feature a fundraiser that was held for little Jasmina Amena. The hosts of the show, Robert and Cortney Novogratz, were personal friends of Jasmina before she passed away and are still friends with Jasmina's mom Thea. Because of what happened to Jasmina, Robert and Courtney were able to create a feature on their program to help spread Jasmina and Thea's message: To raise awareness about Leukemia and the need for more people to join the registry as willing donors.

You may remember reading about Jasmina here on Tami's blog in the past. She was an adorable and courageous little girl who got to meet President Barack Obama just weeks before she passed away. CLICK HERE for to read the memorial blogpost I wrote about Jasmina.

I Am an official SMART volunteer for Be The Match

At the end of last year I was contacted by a representative from Be The Match (The National Marrow Donor Program) who informed me that they had noticed the volunteer advocacy work I had been doing online to help my cousin Tami and other patients who needed to find marrow matches to save their lives.

They had noticed there were many people like myself, out there doing their own thing to raise public awareness about Be The Match. So they wanted to create a program that would offer us up to date information as well as an actual liaison at Be The Match who could assist us in our online advocacy efforts. Great! I need all of the help I can get.

I was asked to a part of a focus group that would help to develop information for the program over the course of several weeks. I joined the group, answered lots of questions, then they took that information and developed the "Social Media Action Response Team" program and I'm very excited to say that I am now an official "SMART" Volunteer for Be The Match.

The journey I have taken into being a volunteer advocate over the past year has been more heartbreaking then joyful but ultimately even through the sadness it is rewarding because even though many of the patients I wish had found matches in time didn't, it doesn't mean that the effort to help them was wasted. In fact the patients themselves are usually the first to point out that even if a match isn't found for them, they know that people who joined the donor program to try to help them, might someday help another patient in need, and that means the world to them.

Yesterday was a bittersweet day.

Rob Harder is a young man who was entering the prime of his life in 2009 having just graduated from college. Early last year he was diagnosed with an Aggressive T-Cell Lymphoma. He set up a blog, a Facebook Group (which is how I met him) and shared his story with the world. Yesterday his family posted on his Facebook Group that he is nearing the end of his battle and on his behalf, bid his friends and fans farewell. (ETA: Rob did pass away that same evening. May he RIP)

At almost the same moment that Rob's family posted that he was not in pain and surrounded by his loved ones, who want to be there to comfort and love on him as he passes, little 8 year old Natalie Nakatani's family posted on Facebook that she had finally received her bone marrow transplant yesterday and now has a chance at surviving the Acute Myeloid Leukemia she suffers from. You might recall from a previous post that her doctors had given her less than 6 weeks to find a match before they felt it would be too late, when, with I think less than 2 weeks left, an international donor match was found for her in China.

What has become normal for me is simply fielding some questions to the proper places that can help those in need. For instances a few weeks ago I received a desperate plea for help from a man in Europe who was told there was no hope for a transplant for his condition because the cost was too prohibitive and another inquiry from someone here in the U.S. who wanted to set up a donor drive for their sick cousin. I was able to direct both of them to the proper agencies who could help them. The man in Europe I found a group that might be able to get him into a clinial trial offering some hope and more time with his family. The woman in the U.S. I was able to direct to both Be The Match and DKMS to help her set up a donor drive.

So emotionally it is often hard on a good day and absolutely heartbreaking on a bad day. But I believe if more people get involved and if more people are willing to donate their stem cells or marrow to a stranger in need, we can turn this whole thing around and begin saving more patients instead of watching them wait and wait for a marrow match that never comes or is found too late. The donation process has become very straightforward using a newer method 75% of the time called Peripheral Blood Stem Cell donation (PBSC) where the stem cells can be harvested through your blood instead of marrow being extracted from the hip bone. CLICK HERE to learn more about the 2 donation methods.

Each of us can make a difference. We can be willing to donate our marrow or stem cells to a patient in need and/or help encourage others to join the marrow registry. Please contact me if you have any questions at all. I'm happy to help find you some answers.

Shaquille O’Neal Supports Be The Match

Read about Taylor on the Mid Dekalb news website by CLICKING HERE

Press Release from Be the Match:

Shaquille O’Neal has teamed up with Be The Match to challenge Americans to “Be the one to save a life.” Starting today, three public service announcements will hit the airwaves and the Internet to help the thousands of patients like Taylor John who need a marrow transplant.

Unlike most 15-year-old girls, Taylor isn’t eagerly anticipating her 16th birthday. She has severe sickle cell anemia and a marrow transplant is her best hope for a cure. But there is no matching donor in her family or currently on the Be The Match Registry. And because of the progression of the disease, doctors say Taylor may run out of time if a match isn’t found before her 16th birthday, which is this August.

Taylor and thousands of other patients are counting on the Be The Match Registry, whose 8 million volunteer members stand ready to become marrow donors. While many patients do find the life-saving match they need each year, more donors are needed, especially those from racially and ethnically diverse communities.

You can be the one who helps save a life. Take the first step by joining online at BeTheMatch.org.

New Tutorials

Yesterday and today I added the following tutorials to the Marrow Drives website:

Signs

Online Drives

Logos

Postcards

Iphone Apps

They're designed to help patients in need of a bone marrow or stem cell transplant to learn how to effectively launch their own marrow donor drives.

African Descent Marrow Donor Urgently Needed to Save Zyreal

I'm begging here. If you are of African descent (No matter what continent you live on) and if you are not in a National Marrow Donor Program PLEASE consider joining to help save Zyreal. Also please forward this message to anyone you know who might be able to help him.

Zyreal is an adopted 7 year old boy who suffers from Sickle Cell Anemia. He recently underwent a cord blood (stem cell) transplant to save his life but today his family found out the transplant failed. This means he is now left with no working bone marrow. His body cannot produce new blood cells or platelets so for the time being he will have to rely on transfusions to buy him more time. A better match must be found ASAP if Zyreal is going to survive.

Ethnicity is crucial. Any patient in need of a marrow transplant will most likely find a match within their own ethnic group so Zyreal needs more people of African descent to join the marrow donor program in case they are the one who is going to be able to save his life.

___________________________________________

IN THE UNITED STATES

If you live in the United States please go to Be the Match and enter your zip code to locate a live drive in your area:

http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/Join_in_Person/index.html

It takes 4 cotton swabs that you wipe on the inside of your cheeks to find out if you are the match that can help Zyreal. It can then take up to 10 weeks for the test to be processed. Zyreal cannot wait so please do not delay in locating a drive.

___________________________________________

ALL OTHER COUNTRIES

There is also a list of international marrow programs at this link:

http://helpingtami.org/asian_stem_cell_transplant_int_marrow_programs.html

Please contact a program near you to locate a live drive. In most countries testing is simply swiping the inside of your cheeks with 4 cotton swabs. It can then take up to 10 weeks for the test to be processed. Zyreal cannot wait so please do not delay in locating a drive.

2 Easy Ways You can Help Janet Find Her Cure for Cancer!

1. Business Cards
These are Janet's new business cards. You can order some from me (for free) to hand out to friends, leave a pile on your desk at work for colleagues or customers or keep a few in your wallet or purse to hand out to people you meet. CLICK HERE to place an order online.

This is the front of Janet's business cards

And this is the back

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2. Flyers
If you have a computer and a printer and somewhere to hang or hand out a flyer (i.e. your office at work, a community bulletin board, your church, a club or group, etc.) you can help me to help Janet. There are two parts to this flyer, the information sheet that you can print and hand out and the tear away tabs that can be added to the flyer for bulletin boards so that readers can take one with them to remember the website url when they go back to their computer.

(These links will open in new browser windows and may take up to 1 minute to load as they are high resolution, printable flyers.)

CLICK HERE to download the PDF of this flyer.

CLICK HERE to download the tear away tabs that can be attached to the bottom of the flyer.

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And this is Janet. You can visit her WEBSITE by CLICKING HERE. There you can learn more about her, how to join the National Marrow Donor Program and leukemia. For current updates visit her BLOG by CLICKING HERE.

Will you help her by joining the registry or by spreading the word that she needs more help and more people to register?

On August 24, 2009, 22 year old Janet Liang was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a form of blood cancer. Janet is currently living in the Bay Area and is undergoing chemotherapy in the hopes that she can attain a successful remission. If the chemo fails she will need a stem cell transplant. She will then be faced with the daunting task of locating a marrow match from the national or international registries after tests revealed that her only sibling is not a match. Processing new donor samples can take up to 2 months or more so it is crucial for people to be tested asap before her need becomes critical.

Already in the registry? No matter how long ago you signed up you will remain in the National Registry until you turn 61 years old. If you move or change your phone number you can update your contact information by CLICKING HERE.

Last year more then 4,400 people missed their opportunity to save a life when Be The Match was unable to locate them after they were a preliminary match for a patient in need.

Chinese and Asian Americans Please Help Me to Help Janet Liang

People this is the real deal. Twenty two year old Janet Liang is a patient in critical need. She was diagnosed just months ago with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (bi-phenotypic).

This is Janet's desperate truth, her plea to help her save her own life that I read last night in her most recent blog post. Many of the people who she thought would reach out to help her have not:

"I became distraught because an urgent email was sent from a coordinator at Asian Miracle Matches to 70 of my closest friends in Southern California that I was willing to burden. Only 2 of them replied. No, I’m not popular at all."

I am hoping that all of you will reach out to help her. There is something you can do. You can join the registry or if you already have I implore you to reach out to anyone you know who is of any Asian ethnicity (particularly if they are Chinese) and ask them if they have joined the registry.

Janet's match could be anyone you know and of any Aisan ethnicity whether they are a friend, family or extended family member, a colleague, neighbor, or anyone you might happen to meet in your day to day life. The base requirements are that they are 18-60 years of age and in good health.

If they say they are not in the registry please direct them to any of the following websites to learn more about the pain free registration process and the donation process that is not, contrary to popular beliefs, excruciatingly painful. Most people who donate their marrow or stem cells suffer from relatively little discomfort if any at all. Nausea and a bruised sensation is usually the worst of it. They can learn more about the donation process on theHelpingTami.org website by CLICKING HERE.

They can also learn where live drives are held nationwide or how to order a home test kit at:

Live Drives Nationwide Using their Zip Code Locater
The National Marrow Donor Program website: www.BeTheMatch.org

Southern California Live Drives
Asians for Miracle Matches website: www.AsianMarrow.org

Northern California Drives
Asian American Donor Program website: www.AADP.org

More words from Janet:

"There’s an overwhelming amount of guilt I feel and frustration, because all I can do is keep asking and begging. That’s all I’m good for these days with no guaranteed promise of the ability to return your favors. I also understand that many of you have fruitful, promising lives/futures and are extremely busy. All I can really tell you is that I have about 3-4 months time to come up with some kind of bone marrow donor match. That is nearly impossible. The pressure is on, as my doctors and bone marrow transplant coordinator continuously remind me of the time-sensitive nature of treating this disease. If not, they’ll continue to drag it on and on, keeping me alive with one chemo round after another until I become resistant to it and there’s no other alternative except an umbilical cord transplant, which will buy more time and is currently in the research/experimental stages."