I was diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia) when I was 25 (in 2017) and made a feature film while undergoing a three-year chemotherapy regimen. This is some footage of that journey and an introduction to the movie, Evergreen. eighteastproductions.com https://youtu.be/WpyDQkTZLZQ
“I used that motivation to get me through a lot of my chemotherapy. I just thought about what I would rather be doing. I would rather be on the road, in my car, getting far away from cancer.”
I relapsed in 2020, my leukemia was back, and I needed an unrelated blood stem cell donor. I would most likely need a donor like me, HAPA, half Caucasian, and half Japanese. I could not find a matching donor on the National Registry, so I will have a haploidentical transplant using my sister’s stem cells. She is a half-match. If you are interested in registering as a potential donor, click on the link below.
Text MatchPaul to 61474
Excuse my ignorance, but why does the donor profile for Paul have to be half-Caucasian/half-Japanese
Hi Roji, Matching donors and patients is much more complex than matching blood types. Doctors match donors to patients based on their human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue type. HLA are proteins, or markers, found on most cells in your body. Your immune system uses these markers to recognize which cells belong in your body and which do not. A close HLA match between donor and patient is the most important matching factor.
Matching HLA Markers
There are many HLA markers that make each person’s tissue type unique. These markers are ethnic-specific. Some markers are only found in the Chinese community or black community.
A patient’s doctor selects several potential donors whose HLA matches the patient at a basic level. The doctor then asks for additional testing to determine which donor most closely matches the patient.
If a patient has many matches, doctors will also consider other factors such as the donor’s age, gender, blood type, height and weight. Roji,