[LCM Articles] ATTN: Friends of the Lebanese Club @ MIT

[Lily Brook Abood]

Hello,

I apologize for the anonymity of this email. I am trying to reach out to
Arab-American communities to help raise awareness about the need for bone
marrow donors with our ethnic background.

I am writing to ask for your help and for your good wishes. My sister,
Jessica Cody Abood, was originally diagnosed with leukemia in January 2006
and spent the majority of last year fighting the disease. She put in a good
fight though and in March 2006 the cancer went into remission. But, the
cancer came back and the treatment this time around needs to be different.

The doctors have recommended that Jessica receive a bone marrow transplant
as soon as the cancer is in remission, but because of our unique ethnic
heritage (primarily Lebanese and German), she does not currently have a
donor match.

If you could reach out to your communities and families to help raise
awareness and recruit donors, I would greatly appreciate your help.


For those of you who are interested, I've pulled together some more
information in the attached pdf about getting tested and the process of
donating marrow or blood. To summarize: it's really, really easy. To be
tested (and added to the registry) all you need to do is get a cheek
swab.That's it. One Q-tip rolled around and you're done. (The process
of donating
marrow/blood to a patient is a bit more complicated, but you always have the
choice to donate or not, and they make the process very simple for the
donor.)

I cannot overemphasize my plea for individuals from racial or ethnic
minority groups to be tested. Of the 4,000,000+ donors in the Registry,
there is not one single match for Jessica. So, please please please reach
out to people that you know who may have Lebanese/Arab ancestry, or help me
locate community organizations or church groups that may have access to
Arab-American communities.

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) has made great strides in its
efforts to provide matches for more patients. Yet, even with millions of
potential donors and tens of thousands of cord blood units on the Registry,
patients from some racial and ethnic groups remain less likely to find a
suitable match than others. In addition, some patients are unable to find a
suitable match because of the rarity of their tissue traits. Some tissue
traits are more likely to be found among people of a particular racial or
ethnic heritage. That is why a pressing need remains for more people who
identify themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or
African American, Hispanic or Latino, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific
Islander, or multiple-race to volunteer as donors.
Jessica completes her chemotherapy treatment today and we will know in a few
weeks if the treatment was successful. If her cancer is in remission, she
will need a bone marrow transplant. Please help us improve her chances at
life by getting tested, sending this email far and wide, and sending all the
love in the world her way.

Thank you.

Lily B. Abood

 lilybrook at gmail.com



If you'd like to find out more about my leukemia, please visit The National
Cancer Institute <http://www.cancer.gov/> or The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
<http://www.leukemia.org/>

For more information about bone marrow registries, or getting yourself
tested, please visit The National Marrow Donor
Program<http://www.marrow.org/> ,
or the American Bone Marrow Donor Registry <http://www.abmdr.org/>
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