Been getting lots of info about this 2-year-old boy in my inbox lately. Harrison Leonardo has Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) and needs a bone marrow transplant to survive. He’s spent most of this year fighting cancer, which went into remission in August. The cancer relapsed just before Thanksgiving.
I have seen adults struggle hard in the fight against cancer. I can't imagine what it is like for a child.
Harrison is currently hospitalized and undergoing another round of chemotherapy while his doctors and family search for a donor. Harrison is biracial (Filipino and Caucasian) which makes it hard to find a donor since few minorities are registered as donors. It's believed that a good match would be someone of the same background.
According to the Mavin Foundation approximately 130,000 people are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases like leukemia and other blood cancers and it is estimated that at least 12,000 of these patients will not be cured without a bone marrow transplant. Thousands die every year waiting for a transplant.
His parents and brother are not matches, so the family, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, is looking for help from others and is organizing several donor drives with the help of the Asian American Donor Program (AADP).
If you can't make it to a donor drive, the AADP will send you a free home-testing kit free of charge.
For more info please see:
Posted by melissa at December 13, 2006 2:56 PM
4 Comments
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it's simple, and definitely worth 15 minutes of your time! help a (little) brother out!
Just to inform you Harrison's family has expanded their search to the NY Metro Area via DKMS Americas. We have already done a donor drive with them last night and can also send donor registration kits to people's homes.
thank you
Ellie
Transport Coordinator
Bone cancer was once prevalent among individuals who painted radium on watch faces (to produce glow-in-the-dark dials). WBR LeoP
Nice blog