Project Michelle – Fremont bone marrow drive.

Got a random call out of the blue the other day from a guy I’ve known since kindergarten. (This actually isn’t that rare. I’ve been told by many friends that the connectedness my social circle has with fellow alum from grade school to high school is really impressive.)

This friend is a personal friend of Michelle Maykin, a young Berkeley grad living with leukemia. Michelle has made it through five (FIVE!) rounds of chemotherapy, but she has since relapsed and a mass has been discovered on her brain. Michelle appears to be a strong, positive person, but what the diagnosis comes down to is the necessity for a bone marrow transplant. And here, all you Asian readers, is where you can help with Project Michelle.

The friend called to round up his friends in the Bay Area for a bone marrow registration drive. It should go without saying how helpful it is to offer what you can to the community around you, be it volunteering energy, promotional networking, or even your own body’s resources. With bone marrow registration, different proportions of populations affect the availability of transplants for those in need. The “populations” I’m referring to are based on race and ethnicity, which really do affect our medical opportunities.

For whatever reason, Asians in particular are severely underrepresented when it comes to bone marrow registration. I should also mention that for whatever reason, matches between potential donors and the people who need them are more likely to occur when the two parties come from similar racial and ethnic backgrounds. (Minorities in general are underrepresented in bone marrow registries. See NBC 7’s coverage on the shortage here.)

This presents a problem for survivors like Michelle, who happens to be Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai. The low number of Asian registrants describes all ethnicities within the race – Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan, and more (the list goes on and on and on). From the Project Michelle website: “Only 3% of all Asian Americans are registered as bone marrow donors.” That’s not very model minority of us, is it?

With the drives for Project Michelle, we are presented with the opportunity to not only find Michelle a potential donor (She needs one by June 21st.), but to also grow the number of Asians who have already contributed to the National Marrow Donor Program Registry. Michelle is definitely not the only one in need, and judging by all the glowing praise describing her in her bio, she’s smart enough to know that no matter what the outcome for a single patient, increasing the numbers in the Registry is better for the future. The Asian American Donor Program lists other wives, children, brothers, and friends who are also searching for matching donors.

That all said, that friend who called is in the final stages of confirming a site for a bone marrow registration drive on Saturday. The information below will be updated as required permissions are granted, and this entry will be made “sticky” so that all ye random blog visitors will have instant access to the latest:

Project Michelle
Bone Marrow Registration Drive

Saturday May 31, 2008
9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Club Sport Fremont
46650 Landing Parkway
Fremont, California 94538

Please forward this link along to whoever you think might be able to come by Saturday morning (Registering takes only 12 minutes of your time, but if you’re interested, we can also use more volunteers!), or whoever you think can help promote the drive. Info will be added as necessary, including a Facebook event and contact information. Leave your inquiries in a comment and I’ll answer your questions if I can!

Thanks, friends,
~M.

P.S. This situation is close to many of my friends’ hearts because one of our good friends lost his 6-year old brother to leukemia when we were in high school. Just months after, his father passed away as well, no doubt heavily taxed upon by the death of his youngest child. (This particular family happens to be Chinese.)