Hey Everyone,
My friend Yuriy needs your help! He has Hodgkin's Lymphoma and needs to undergo a bone marrow transplant, ideally in January 2011. Yuriy is of Ukrainian/Russian background, so if you know others with similar backgrounds, please pass this on to them.
Yuriy needs your help! Even if you're not a potential donor yourself, passing on the word or lifting up prayers for Yuriy would be very helpful.
Thanks so much--I really appreciate that you are even taking the time to read this. If you would like to contact Yuriy, please let me know and I will give you his information separately.
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Dear friend,
My name is Yuriy Pasko and you may have gotten this letter from me directly, from a friend, or from a family member. I wrote this letter in hope that you could help me survive my illness. In summer of 2007 I was diagnosed with an illness called Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This illness is a cancer that needs to be treated with chemotherapy, radiation, and sometimes more serious methods.
I have been treated for my Lymphoma in fall of 2009 and appeared to have been healthy. After almost two years my illness has returned. I am currently getting a new treatment of chemotherapy at UCSF oncology department. My doctor has consulted with her colleagues and told me that I need to go through a serious procedure called Bone Marrow Transplant. For this procedure I need another person who can be my donor. This donor has to be very similar to me genetically and be similar to my ethnic background. My background is Russian and Ukrainian. Two of my grandparents are from Ukraine, and two of my grandparents are from different parts of Russia. That means my donor has to have a somewhat similar background. The donor can be a man or a woman. They can also have any blood type. The donor also should not be older than 60 years old.
In America there is a Bone Marrow Donor Database. It has many people of different ethnic groups, but there are very few Russian or Ukrainian people in it. My doctor told me there may be a few matches for me, but they are not as good as could be. If a donor is not very similar to me genetically I could get very serious medical problems after the transplant. These problems could be due to rejection of tissue. If, however, the donor is very close to me, I could be cured of my illness without medical complications.
That is why I am writing this letter to you. If you match my description, or if you know of any persons under 60, who could match and become a bone marrow donor, you could give them this letter. The only way they could sign up to become a match is by going to a website and requesting a test kit. The website is WWW.MARROW.ORG Once you are there, click on “Join The Registry”
After you or your friend fill out the form you will receive a test kit in the mail. After you use this test kit, you send it back and in about 6 weeks the doctors will be able to see the new donors and they will be able to see if there are new matches.
I want to briefly tell you that filling out the form from Bone Marrow Database and becoming a match is entirely voluntary process at no financial cost to you. If you are contacted by a hospital about being a match they will work around your schedule as well. If you decide to become a donor, the process of donating is very safe and does not damage the donor’s health. To donate the stem cells from your bone marrow you will be asked to go to the nearest hospital in your state where they have a hematology department. Afterward the hospital will freeze the cells and send them by plane either to me or to another recipient who needs them.
If you have any questions about information in this letter please feel free to call me at (phone removed for internet) or email me at (email removed for internet)
Sincerely,
Yuriy Pasko
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