Okay, those of you who know me, know that I am more of a commenter than a diarist. But a story I read today, from yesterday's NYT, touched me & since Kossacks are so giving (& since this is the biggest forum I go to), I thought it was perfect for a shout-out.
A quick search revealed nothing: if this has been diaried before, I will delete it.
Anyway, there's a six-year-old girl in New York who needs a bone marrow trasnplant. Details beneath the jump.
Jasmina just turned 6 years old. The chemo has made her lose her hair; her mother has moved into the hospital; but because she is adopted, she has no relatives who can contribute: according to the NYT, she has no full siblings, the likeliest group to match her blood & bone marrow type.
In early January, a red blip, the size of a bug bite, appeared. It got itchy, and she told her mom, Thea Anema.
"It looked like nothing," the mother said. Then the foot started to swell. On the morning of Jan. 20, on their way to Jasmina’s kindergarten at Public School 141 in Greenwich Village, they stopped at the pediatrician’s office.
Her abdomen was swollen; a test found her white blood cells in the organized riot of leukemia.
"He said go to N.Y.U. Medical Center," Ms. Anema said on Friday. "We hopped in a cab, and basically have been here since then."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Jasmina, who is African-American and was adopted at 3 days old, faces more hurdles than most. Genetic matches are more likely within families, and then within racial and ethnic groups. She does not have full siblings....
There are over 200,000 of us here at dKos. The point of this diary is to ask: do you know how/can you help this little girl? One key piece in the story: only 440,000 people were added to the bone marrow donor list last year. Twice the Kos membership: but not nearly enough. As Jasmina's mother says:
"You go into the hospital and you need blood; you don’t have to call all your friends to see who can give blood," said Ms. Anema, a fashion designer. "You do for bone marrow."
The online story, linked above, has links to the National Marrow Donor Program, and to A.A.B.B., previously known as the American Association of Blood Banks.
I really don't know much else...action diaries are not my area of expertise...but am hoping that those Kossacks who do not read the Times but who care, will read this & maybe consider passing it along. Or writing to their senators and representatives so that blood banks have to test for bone marrow transplant compatibility. Anyway, thanks for reading, and anything you can do to help Jasmina, I'm sure she and her mother would appreciate. I don't know them, I only read about this in the Times. But it touched me.
We have so many problems...so many are uninsured (yeah, me included in that), but this little girl...oh, go read the story. Please.