All I ask for is your spit !

Hi. This is my daughter- Shobhini  Manikarnika Kumar. We call her  Manu. She is seven years old.  She loves dancing, swimming, travel and Saravana Bhavan Sandwiches.'. She is a hardworking student who loves her math and hates her Hindi lessons. She adores children and harbours dreams of working in fashion when she grows up.

 IF she grows up. 

We urgently need your help and generosity to support Manu's fight to beat the odds.

On April 29, 2013, Manu was diagnosed with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  After a month of traumatic chemotherapy, we got a more alarming diagnosis- Manu has ETP- ALL,  a rare , hard to treat leukemia. She is currently in Tucson, Arizona, bravely enduring her daily chemo and blood thinner shots and receiving weekly transfusions.

A  stem cell transplant is necessary, and it is hard to find matches  for Indian HLA Types, because Indians have so many unique subtypes .

We are looking for a Bone marrow or umbilical  cordblood donation. The USA has FREE registries that test type and receive bone marrow and cord blood donations. 

Just as blood is matched by blood group, Stem cells are matched using HLA typing. 

BONE MARROW needs minimum 10 HLAs to match.

CORD BLOOD needs 6/6 match, that is, the major six HLAs have to match.

SAVE MY CHILD's LIFE.

If you are of South Indian descent and live in any part of USA or Europe, You can perhaps help save my kid's life at little or no cost to you.

If you are in India and would still like to help, please get in touch with me at kasthuris@gmail.com .

 HOW YOU CAN HELP 

BONE MARROW DONATION :

 Indian bone marrow matches are not readily available. Even less so when it comes to the south Indian Subtype.If you are an ADULT, please register immediately as a bone marrow donor- You can register online at http://bethematch.org/Join/Join_the_Registry.aspx .  

The website gives you several options to get your HLA typed- usually from a cheek swab of your saliva- like attending a registry drive, going to a nearby recruitment center, or receiving a homekit. 

PLEASE REGISTER ASAP. The process is painless, non intrusive, and free.

UMBILICAL CORD BLOOD DONATION : 

If you are an EXPECTANT PARENT in your third trimester , Please consider donating your child's umbilical cord blood. The process is COMPLETELY NON INTRUSIVE as the blood is collected from the discarded waste after birth. Registering and testing to donate must be completed between weeks 28 and 34 of pregnancy. Donation is free, and is a great idea since private banking costs several hundreds of dollars. Donating your child's cord blood makes it  potentially available to  even your own use  for free if the need arises.You can get all the details at  http://bethematch.org/Get_Involved/Donate_Cord_Blood/How_to_Donate/How_to_Donate.aspx

Once you register, the collection can be done at whichever hospital you are giving birth. Here is a list of participating hospitals where you can register, get more information and ask for homekits-

http://bethematch.org/Get_Involved/Donate_Cord_Blood/How_to_Donate/Participating_Hospitals.aspx

FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS :

In India, HLA typing is an expensive process. Moreover, Indian HLA types are so diverse that one may need to test several hundreds of people in order to find one match.The cost of conducting bone marrow registration drives routinely runs into lakhs. The registries also charge hefty fees- running into several lakhs- for delivering the bone marrow units. So even though donors volunteer their bone marrow for free, patients still end up with huge bills, usually impossible by Indian standards. This is the reason most  transplants in India are done only when a sibling match is available.

In order to aid financially disadvantaged pediatric patients who need a transplant , the MANU MEDICAL CORPUS has been instituted. The corpus is dependant on your charitable contributions . We are in the process of  securing 80G  and 501 exemptions.

Please contact me at kasthuris@gmail.com with any questions you may have, or to update me of your kindness.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS APPEAL to all  your contacts, especially pregnant ones !