Give Jian a Second Chance At Life!

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Marrow donor:Give Jian a Second Chance At Life!

帮一同学贴的

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We can never predict what might happen to us, our relatives or our close friends tomorrow, but if we reach out and help people with our heart today, when we need help tomorrow, the help will be there.

http://jian4yu2.homelinux.org/home.html

From Jian's wife To All of You That Care

February 9th, 2004 was our wedding day - I decided to marry my long-time boyfriend Jian Yu a week after he was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia. He is only thirty years old. I could hardly bear the heaviness of the event and I know the best way I can help him is to send the following message to as many people as possible. I am waiting for a miracle and I believe there will be one.

The type of Leukemia Jian has is very aggressive. No one can predict what is going to happen to him in six months or a year. The intensive chemotherapy he is receiving now can only put the cancer into remission temporarily; for his life to continue, he will need a stem cell transplant.

Siblings are normally the best bone marrow donor candidates, but Jian is an only child. He also has not found a perfect match in the existing bone marrow registry. The National Marrow Donor center has 4.5 million donors currently registered. Taiwan has about 240,000 registered potential donors. Mainland China only has about 20,000 registrants at present. In general, it is difficult to find a match and the Chinese donor pool is so small that it is even more difficult for Jian or other Asian patients to find a match. If you are an Asian, I urge you to join the national bone marrow program now. You can go to a nearby Donor Center or a Bone Marrow Drive in your area. You could be the one who saves Jian, or someone else who is also desperately racing with death. Thanks to recent medical developments, donors usually need only give blood stem cells instead of bone marrow.

I have already registered in the donor center. I may not be able to help Jian right away, but one day I might give a new life to someone else's loved one. Let's all help each other out. Let's wish that no one will have to let cancer take away his or her life in the future and let's wish that Jian and I will have many, many happy years together.

-- Lu Shen


About Jian Yu (余健):
From Anhui, China
Class 9100, University of Science and Technology of China
1997-1999, Univeristy of Texas at Austin


About Lu Shen (沈潞):
From Shanghai, China
Class 9023, Fudan University
1996-1999, Univeristy of Texas at Austin