URGENT: Please help save my cousin's life

[armstrong]

My cousin Christine in the US is battling cancer, and urgently needs to find a bone marrow donor. Unfortunately, finding a perfect match for her bone marrow type is particularly difficult. This is hard enough for the average person; there are over 20,000 types of bone marrow, so the average person has a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding a match. These numbers are even worse for Christine. Because she is Filipino, she needs to find a donor of the same ethnic background, and there are hardly any Filipinos on the US National Registry.

Right now is our best chance of having the Bone Marrow Transplant work. Each day's delay decreases her chances of surviving. Please contact your Filipino friends or relatives in the US, and ask them to contact their friends. Anyone you know who is all or part Filipino and between the ages of 18 and 61 is a potential donor. The system is nationwide, so it doesn't matter where they live. Signing up on the registry is easy and painless. All it requires is a simple blood test. Some hospitals charge a small fee for this blood test, however the fee is routinely waived for minorities, and often for Caucasians as well, especially if you are willing to donate a pint of blood.

You can find a registration center by selecting your state on the map on this website. These centers can refer you to bone marrow drives in your community.

http://www.marrow.org/cgi-bin/NETWORK/map.pl?ctr_typ=DC

There is also a wonderful organization in Los Angeles that arranges free registration for Filipino donors.

www.asianmarrow.org

If you have trouble finding a site in your area, have any trouble finding a place to donate for free, or have additional questions, you can reach Christine's boyfriend Jacob at this email address:

info [at] christine.site.ph

You can reassure your friends that signing up for the registry does not require donating any bone marrow. If it turns out they are a match, they will be contacted, and can make the decision at that point about becoming a donor.

There are lots of misconceptions about donating bone marrow. The procedure is considered minor, simple and safe. You will be anesthetized the whole time, so you will not feel anything. When the procedure is over, you may have some soreness in the area for a day or two and you may feel a little tired. That's it. The bone marrowyou donate is replenished within 3-4 weeks. And again, you will only undergo this procedure if your blood sample shows that you are a match and you decide to donate, in which case the slight soreness you'll be feeling will be saving someone's life.

All medical expenses for the donor will be covered by Christine's insurance.

You can find out more about the registry and the donation procedure at this website:

www.marrow.org

Thank you!

Apollo a.k.a. "armstrong" :hearts:

 

[tanfwc]

my prayer for the family....

 

[Billy!]

Thinking of you and your cousin Armstrong. Maybe there are some Filipino Forums out there where you can ask for help.

 

[creme]

Any word?

 

[mgt]

God Bless You

God Bless. Prayers for Christine

 

[Kenny]

Hello,

I just received this from Christine's Army Forum.

Dear friends and family,

We just received a call from Christine stating that she will be on TV
tonight -Thursday, 6/22/06. ABC Nightline has been following her a few
weeks ago and will air her story tonight at 11:30 pm. Sorry for the
short notice, but we were just informed at the last moment today. Please
watch it tonight and share Christine's story.

Sincerely,
Tony Spaulding

Lets all watch.

Peace,
Cyberian

 

[B33R]

EDIT: Link removed.

See RJ's post here for a link to the video of Christine on Nightline.

 

[Collector]

God bless... my prayers for Christine and family...

 

[Kenny]

Today, the 28th of June Christine went in for surgery.
Please keep her in your thoughts.

 

[frukloops]

oh my god that's so terrible..i hope someone can help your cousin.

 

[angisson]

~ Cyberian ~, its 2 days later, anyword ?

 

[B33R]

~ Cyberian ~, its 2 days later, anyword ?

There's more info on exactly what's happening on Christine's forum. Direct Link

I am now in the hospital being conditioned for this high-risk transplant, my only hope for survival. Yesterday they drained 60% of my B+ blood and replaced it with O+ blood. The donor’s blood type is O+. In Bone Marrow Transplantation, blood type does not matter because the patient releases her own blood type and adopts the donor’s blood type in its place. I am now B+ but by next week I will be O+. Replacing the blood ahead of time makes the transition a little easier and the transplant more likely to succeed.

I started chemotherapy last night and will continue throughout the week. My blood counts will probably be down to zero by this Monday. Saturday I will get a major dose of Melphalan, a heavy-duty chemotherapy to sledgehammer the cancer with one last big chemo wallop. That will be followed by a few days of anti-rejection transplant drugs. If things are well, I undergo the bone marrow transplant on Wednesday, July 5. The next three weeks will be the most critical; as we pray and hope that the marrow grafts and healthy new blood cells replace the unhealthy ones. I pray that my body does not reject the donor’s stem cells (marrow) and that his stem cells (marrow) do not reject my body. If things stay under control, I will remain in the hospital for 100 days. More than half of those days will be spent in isolation.

That's only part of what Christine wrote in her post here

It sounds terrible. Poor Christine. I really hope she beats it.

 

[Kenny]

Nice post B33R.....

 

[Zeus]

How did this play out? Did you ever find a donor?

 

[armstrong]

How did this play out? Did you ever find a donor?

Christine found a partial donor, and got started on the transplant procedure Monday last week. Since it wasn't a perfect match, the attendant risks were (are) much greater. There has been no news since Monday.

 

[Janine]

My blood it B. but i'm only 14 yrs old. arghhhhh.
i really wanna donate my bone marrow

 

[NPQueen]

How long until they know if her body will accept the partial match? How is she doing since the procedure? I just keeping praying!

 

[rcep]

God Bless ur cousin

I wish the proper donor comes soon

 

[armstrong]

How long until they know if her body will accept the partial match? How is she doing since the procedure? I just keeping praying!

Hello NPQueen,

Christine's brother Marc posted an update yesterday:

As you know we are in the third day of the transfusion. At this moment the marrow has not grafted with her body. Bone marrow, if it accepts the body, takes a day to a few weeks to graft to the body. The longer it takes the marrow to start grafting, the harder it becomes for the patient as it becomes harder for the body to heal.

fulltext here -> http://christine.site.ph/_mgxroot/page_10797.html

 

[Kenny]

Thanks Armstrong, our prayers are with her.

 

[dgridley]

Keeping the thoughts positive.. best wishes!

 

[NPQueen]

Thank you so much for the update HUGS

 

[B33R]

Sunday's update:

It's Sunday morning and Christine is doing her best to relax at the moment. She has what she calls a "nausea headache," and so we placed a cool, wet towel on her head. I also got her an acoustic-therapy machine that plays sounds to enhance Alpha, Delta and Theta waves which seems to help. For the past couple days, Christine has had a high fever. It is expected that she will spike every so often. Yesterday it went up to 39.2! (That's 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit.) The result was a number of blood draws in order to culture it to check for infection. Christine dealt with the high fever all night which not only exacerbated her nausea and aches but also leads to extreme full-body chills which she had to ride out.

There's more at - http://christine.site.ph/_mgxroot/page_10799.html

 

[B33R]

Update: July 11, 2006

From a friend:
Hey Everybody, Just saw Christine today, and she looks pretty good for having going through hell. She looked tired, but still able to laugh. I was lucky, because today was a "good" day for her; "good" meaning her nausea was at a mild "car sickness" level. I can't imagine feeling like that constantly, 24 hours non stop. And it was a good day. Her body is full of medicine, and its making her liver not so good. So she asked me to ask all of you to say a prayer for her liver to heal and get better.

 

[Billy!]

Just a message from Australia ... I am am thinking of Christine, we all take life for granted .. we dont think these kind of things may hit us, but they do, we think "No it will never happen to me" but unfortunately it does happen to alot of Me's....

My thoughts right now are with you Christine ...

Billy
Australia

 

[maximum]

They say "What comes up must come down.". God was the first one to use that philosophy. It is commonly called "prayer" by man.

Taken from unknown sources:

- "Faith is not thinking God can, but knowing He will."
We just have to let God know we understand this point, when it comes to his ability to make Christine well again.
- "Faith makes things possible....not easy."
God did not promise Christine (or any of us for that matter) an easy ride in life. But, through our faith, he can make anything overcomable.
- "Our job is not to see through one another;but, to see one another through."
Don't try guessing why Christine has to suffer this. Only God knows the answer to that. It equates to asking why a 3-year-old is killed by a drunk driver, while the drunk survives. There is nothing we would see in Christine that deserves this. We just have to understand that God has his reasons. Our job is to help her through it.
- PUSH: Pray Until Something Happens !
Needs explained?
- " You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage them."
Her courage through this all, shows she is alot bigger than most of us could ever hope to be.

Prayers are with her. Please, keep the updates coming.