This is Janet Liang. She has been fighting acute lymphoblastic leukemia since August 2009. Her doctors told her she needs to find a bone marrow donor by April.
Liang is Chinese-America. Currently, only 25% of the people registered in the National Bone Marrow Registry are racial minorities. Watch her heartbreaking video and please, please, please sign up for the Be The Match Registry. Sign up online and they’ll send you a kit in the mail. All you need to do is send them a cheek swab.
Here’s some information about donating. Basically, they remove some bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells with a needle. Your body will grow back whatever they take, and most people can expect a full recovery from the outpatient procedure in 2-3 weeks.
I’ve been a member of the registry since 2005 and I’ve never been matched as a donor. So don’t worry—it’s not like you sign up and you’ll be in the hospital the next day. You can always update your membership with them and/or ask to be removed from the registry if you change your mind. But imagine being able to save someone’s life with the stuff your body grows naturally. It’s an incredible gift to give. My friend Kevin is alive today because of a stranger who donated marrow. Janet is a friend of a friend from college, and she’s hoping social media can save her life.
Please consider signing up, especially if you’re a POC. And please reblog this to help find a match for Janet and thousands of other people waiting for a miracle.
-Jess
I’ve been on the registry for over 5 years and I get to read amazing stories about people who’ve received donations and have donated their marrow. It could take 5 days for them to match you, it could take 15 years. But I do it because someone out there, like Janet, needs it.
Like Jess said, technology has advanced so far that donating marrow can be an outpatient procedure. It’s worth looking into. :) Don’t worry about anything: costs, hospital stay, nothing. All that is paid for you. They just want your marrow.
More cool story bro: Two years ago I was selected to be a donor, but it was a preliminary screening. Basically they took out more blood and a swab. I think it’s said that 1 in 8 of the preliminary will be a match, but the odds could be less likely. Sadly, I wasn’t a match. But I hope whoever needed that donation got it.
Best of luck to Janet, I hope she’s matched with a donor soon!
tl;dr: REBLOG THIS PLEASE.
Reblogging for anyone who didn’t see this earlier today. Please hop over to Be The Match and register. And please reblog this! There is such a wonderful community of people on Tumblr, and it’d be so great if we were able to find a match for Janet or any of the other 10,000 people who need a life-saving marrow transplant.
-Jess
Signal boost. I’m on the registry myself and recently updated it. They won’t let me donate for a while since I’ve just had a baby and nursing so please register if you’re able to.
Please, please I beg y’all to reblog this. Janet is within several of my friend circles in college. I’ve been a registered bone marrow donor and the process is not that hard.
(via mishlapi)
