ramblings of a lunar girl

thedailywhat:

PSA of the Day: Two weeks ago, Photojojo and Jelly founder Amit Gupta received a decidedly unpleasant phone call from his physician. “Amit,” the doctor said, “you’ve got Acute Leukemia. You need to enter treatment right away.”

“I was terrified,” Amit writes. “I packed a backpack full of clothes, went to the hospital as he’d instructed, and had transfusions through the night to allow me to take a flight home at 7am the next day. I Googled acute leukemia as I lay in my hospital bed, learning that if it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks.”

This is where you come in.

Amit Gupta is of South Asian decent. While that may be awesome in many ways, it is not the best thing to be when you’re looking for a bone marrow donor among the 9.5 million records in the national bone marrow registry.

In fact, being of South Asian descent means Amit has only a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding a match.

Long story shot, he needs your help. Here are some things you can do:

1. If you’re South Asian, get a free test by mail [Canadians: Go here]. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. It’s easy.
2. If you’re in NYC, you can go to this event my friends are putting on.
3. If you know any South Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, or Sri Lanka), please point ‘em to the links above.

Amit’s friends Seth Godin and Michael Galpert have decided to sweeten the pot for potential donors: Match Amit’s bone marrow, and they will each award you with a profile on their respective sites and $10,000 for you or the charity of your choice.

A hashtag has been set up for prospective candidates — #IswabbedforAmit — and a website has been launched to help people who want to help but need help doing so.

Please do what you can if you can while you can.

[superamit.]