Unique drive to save young woman’s life.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Aplastic Anemia is a very rare disorder in which a person’s bone marrow is so severely damaged that it causes a deficiency in not just one type of blood cell, but all three types: white, red, and platelet blood cells. According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), it only affects one or two people per million every year in the United States, meaning “somewhere between 300 and 600 new cases will develop [annually].” And earlier this year, 27 year-old Monica Chopra found out that she has the disease.
Upon hearing of her diagnosis, the first thing Chopra – a native of California – did was to call up her friends and family and tell them to live each day to the fullest; to not waste a single moment of life and to make sure they enjoyed and appreciated each and every day as if it were their last.
Treatments for Aplastic Anemia are available, such as immunosuppressive therapy, which Chopra has undergone. The objective of such treatment is to curtail the growth of white blood cells so that the other two kinds can grow more rapidly. While immunosuppressive therapy can help, it cannot fully cure the disease. That can only be done through a bone marrow transplant, for which neither her immediate family nor relatives are a match for. She has been getting weekly blood transfusions, which at the moment are the only things keeping her alive.
Rumana Hafesjee, working together with Monica’s long-time best friend Sonia Sawhney, have organized a bone marrow drive for Chopra that will take place on August 25th in New York City. But what’s different about this bone marrow drive is its venue: a bar. Specifically, Van Diemens on 3rd Avenue, which will host a social mixer event that will also double as a place where anyone interested can register to be a bone marrow donor if they’re found to be a match.
Testing for marrow matches is one of the easiest procedures in medicine. Instead of getting pricked with a needle or giving a urine sample, all a person needs to do is simply swab the inside of their cheek with a Q-tip for a cheek cell sample. The sample is then processed at the lab to determine if the cheek cell is a compatible match for the person looking for a bone marrow donor.
South Asians make up an alarmingly low number of the registered bone marrow donors in the US; out of 10.5 million registered donors, South Asians constitute only two percent. Since people of similar ethnicities have the highest chances of being matches for one another, Chopra’s highest probability of finding a suitable donor are South Asian donors aged 18 to 44. Having a social mixer in the heart of New York City seems like the perfect way to attract just that age group.
Chopra is a native of Danville, California, a suburb of San Francisco. According to information on the Cure Monica Facebook page, Bollywood superstar Priyanka Chopra acknowledge Monica at an Independence Day event last week in southern California, raising further awareness of Monica’s plight and ways to help.
For more information on the upcoming social mixer event, please visit the aforementioned Facebook link, visit CureMonica.org, or contact Rumana Hafesjee at rum1@hotmail.com
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com
This post first appeared in americanbazaaronline.com