My brother, Ankush Goyal was diagnosed with leukemia 3 weeks ago. He is 27 years old, had just gotten engaged
and was on top of the world until January, Friday the 13th when his diagnosis was confirmed. He has been in the
hospital since then and has received multiple rounds of chemotherapy to kill the cancerous cells.
We did not know much about the disease, but have learned a lot in the last few weeks. The type of leukemia that
Ankush has, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, is actually in his bone marrow. His bone marrow is making cancerous
white blood cells. In short, even though the chemo has killed his good and bad white blood cells for now, Ankush
needs a bone marrow transplant.
Ankush needs you! Please come out to Monroe and give us a bone marrow sample! Please also send this email to
as many people as you can regardless of their ethnicity – you never know who can match him. Anyone between
the ages 18 – 60 is qualified to donate and get tested. Please help us get people to the testing site. Give Ankush a
second chance at life.
Bone Marrow Drive
To help Ankush and others we are conducting bone marrow drives. There is one being held for Ankush Goyal as
follows:
Date: February 11, 2012
Time: 11 am- 4pm
Place: Monroe Township Middle School ( Performing Arts Center)
1629 Perrineville Road, Monroe, NJ
Why is finding a match difficult?
The current bone marrow registry consists of approximately 17 million bone marrow profiles. But having South
Asians find a match in this registry is very difficult. One reason for this is that the pool of South Asian (Indians,
Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, …) bone marrow samples in the bone marrow registry is very small. Today there is only 1
in 20,000 chance of matching through the bone marrow registry if you are from South Asia.
Giving a sample
To give a sample for testing all that is required is a cheek swab (taking a cotton swab and rubbing it against the
inside of your cheek). It’s simpler than brushing your teeth. Four swabs will be taken and enclosed in a kit and
sent for testing. Here is a link that shows you details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=RrdXTaAjt0A
If a bone marrow match is found
Once a match is found, the donor will be further examined to ensure that the donor is in good health. The bone
marrow stem cells are now taken from the blood stream so donating bone marrow is similar to donating blood.
Please see the attached links for more details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ldhF80_Kak&feature=email
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GufED8qvWsQ&feature=email