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Dany's Story...
Dany Mercado
24 year old Hispanic man from
Kitchener Ontario that needs
bone marrow NOW! |
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Dany is a 24 year old Hispanic young man.
He was a football player while he was at Grand River Collegiate Institute
High School before he was diagnosed with leukemia in May 2002 at the age
of 19. He was treated
and his leukemia went into remission in July 2002. Dany than had a
relapse in November 2005 and was again in remission in January 2006.
During the period in between January 2006 and October 2007, Dany was at
Conestoga College in the Electrical Engineering Program where he passed
the first year and was into the second year when he had the relapse so he
had to quit his studies due to poor physical condition.
In October 05, 2007 had another relapse. The treatment needed
at that time was much more intense. He has all of the treatment options
except the bone marrow transplant and that according to Canadian Doctors,
is Dany's only solution to save Dany's life.
We have searched
diligently for a compatible donor. Dany's siblings have been tested, as
have other family members, all have been ruled out because of insufficient
compatibility with Dany's bone marrow. We have checked the various blood
services registries, national and world wide, but as yet we have not
located a compatible donor.
The likelihood of
finding a compatible donor is much higher within people of similar
ethnicity. Dany's family is Hispanic and they immigrated to Canada from
Nicaragua when Dany was 5 years old. Generally in the blood service's
registries, minority groups are a low percentage of the registry. Mexico
is the only participating country that has a sizeable percentage of
potential donors of the Hispanic race. Although a donor has not been
found, we are actively looking beyond the registries, knowing that many
people who could be donors have never been registered.
Dany has struggled
with the disease for 5 years and his family is pleading with everyone to
help get their son's life back. This could be your family and we have to
look after other people and think of it as a pay forward.
On July 13th the
family came to Leamington to desperately plead with Better World Today
Association to help them find a match. We were holding an event called
Camp 4 Compassion (
www.camp4compassion.com ).
We spent some time
with Dany? parents, Ileana & Luis and we could see the hurt in their
eyes. All they wanted was their son back and their life back the way it
was. We have aided them ever since.
We have added over
1,600 people to the registry through Dany's cause. After Ileana and Luis
left we held and meeting and decided we were going to support them. We
made a trip down to Kitchener and met up with Ileana and told her we would
help. The first thing we did is planned a bone marrow drive in Detroit.
Some people asked " why Detroit"
Well because we are
from Windsor and Detroit is right across from Windsor and we can't have a
bone marrow drive in Canada. We added over 150 minorities from the first
drive, normally only 40 are added. We decided we needed to have another
drive and we added over 150 again. They were held at St Annes Church and
Holy Redeemer Church in Detroit.
Dany's family
wanted to get another opinion and it was recommended that they go to
Karmanos in Detroit. They went there and had
more testing done on the Thanksgiving weekend and were given the word that
Dany's Leukemia was back and he didn't have much time left if he didn't
get a bone marrow transplant. We invited them over to my brother's house
for Thanksgiving dinner and we had a good visit but we could see they were
very stress out because they just heard the news.
They
were told that they should do the transplant as soon as possible because
he didn't have much time. The next thing they had to ask themselves is,
do you take the chance and wait for a perfect match or do you use a match
that isn't so perfect (mismatch) and take the risk that there is only a
10% chance.
In Ontario they
won't do a mismatch operation and they would have to go to US. Nobody,
and I mean Nobody should have to ask themselves that question. We need to
get on the registry so no other family will ask that question. If there
would have been a perfect match earlier then they would of already had the
procedure done. You could be the needle in the haystack for someone.
The biggest
obstacle for the Mercado's will be the cost was over $200,000.00 that a
mismatch procedure will cost. The hospital in US will not start the
procedure until they have the money in their hand.
After they left we
committed to help them and raise the money for them and we decided we
would put together a group in Kitchener so that they could help raise and
decide what to do with the money. Since we have a lot of successful
experience with raising money and awareness we decided we would put
together a group in Kitchener and help them with the fundraising and
making sure the money gets in the right hands.
Some may be
wondering why OHIP is not covering this procedure. They may come through
at some point but do you wait until they say yes? - it will be much too
late. We decided we would raise funds now and if they do pay for the
procedure than the board will decide where to use the money. The board has
been mandated to use it for something to do with Leukemia, bone marrow or
a Lab in Nicaragua or another family that needs help with Leukemia.
We have to act fast
and get him money and at the same time we have to get the word out about
the bone marrow registry, especially for minorities. If you are a minority
then you don't stand a chance if you need bone marrow. I have already lost
a friend that was a minority and he never found a match before he died.
Thanks,
Ron Giles,
Windsor, Ontario
 www.rongiles.ca
When you sign up on the registry then please write us and let us know. We
will be glad to hear from you.
Click on book to view and sign Dany's Guest
Book...
teclea en el libro para ver y firmar el libro de
visitantes de Dany...
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