I heard from an old friend last week that needs a little help. Justin "Dutch" Van Hoy was a classmate of mine at Winthrop who over a year ago was diagnosed with leukemia. He fought it into remission, but unfortunately he has relapsed. This time around he needs a bone marrow transplant to beat it.
I am reprinting the email below with his permission in order to try and get the word out about the bone marrow donor program. From what I've read it's a simple procedure, both the testing and the actual donation. Justin is in L.A. but that doesn't really matter, you can be tested anywhere. He includes information in his email below, but for those of you in the South East the number is 1 (704) 921-3570. Cotton swab test in the mouth, no needles. Thank you for reading the email below, I know Justin appreciates it.
UPDATE: There is a donor drive tomorrow (1/08/09) at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC, dining room 3 in the Levine Childrens Hospital from 9 am to 4 pm.
UPDATE: An updated post here.
“In case you have not heard, I have had some bad luck and relapsed from my remission from the cancer ( leukemia ). I had a 30% chance of relapsing, and unfortunately that 30% has happened. This time around there is no chance to cure it with regular chemotherapy though, and I have to have a bone marrow transplant. My brother and sister are not matches, so we are having to go searching for an unrelated donor. With this being said, It would mean the world to me if any of you would take the time to see if you are a match. To get tested is really simple and only requires a mouth swab or a very quick blood test.
Some of my information you will need:
- Name: Justin B. Van Hoy ( Please tell whomever you are dealing with that my name is Van Hoy and not Vanhoy. The spelling is important, so make sure they put a space in between Van and Hoy )
- Date of Birth: 2-27-1981
- Medical Record # 0017538881 ( Kaiser Permanente Hospitals Southern California )
- I will be doing my transplant at City of Hope ( http://www.cityofhope.org ), which is just east of Pasadena. It is a really amazing cancer center and highly regarded, so its really great they are only about 10 miles from my house. If you are in the greater LA area, you can go directly to City of Hope to donate blood and get tested at the same time. There is a $50 fee for processing the marrow sample, but if you donate blood too, then the cost is waived. If anyone finds it hard to spend the $50 ( I know times are tough right now, so let me know and I will reimburse you myself.) If you have any questions and are planning on going to City of Hope, you can call 626-301-8483. It works best to make an appointment if you are going up there.
You can also request to have a kit mailed to you. This way you can do the test yourself and mail it back. Have your results mailed back to you, and you can send them to me here at my home. Because of medical confidentiality blah blah blah, they cannot have the results sent directly to me. But this way I can give the results to my people and they can sort everything out. My mailing address is:
146 South Avenue 56
Los Angeles, CA 90042
If you aren’t in the LA area,here are some links for registering with the National Bone Marrow Registry, the entire registry is a worldwide network and is also linked in with the Red Cross, so there are lots of places to go if you aren’t in the LA area. Here are links to figure out where the closest is for you:
http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_Now/join_now.html
http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_in_Person/index.html
I hate asking anyone to have to do this, and I think you all know me well enough that I wouldn’t unless it was really important. Let me know if you have ANY questions at all and I will get them answered for you. You can also .
Hope everyone had a great holiday. Talk with you soon.”
- JUSTIN VAN HOY
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