YATW Blog Post #2 Shortage of donors for African American, Hispanics, and mixed people

Hello it’s me again, Niah Lombo and I am back for round two of my YATW issue. In my blog post #1 , I talked about my issue which was the shortage of donors for African American, Hispanics, and mixed people. Since then I have found more stories of people with cancer looking for donors with one and a million chance of finding one. Lewis Dyche was diagnosed with leukaemia  and after a global search he finds his one in a million bone marrow donor. To read more about his story click here.  


Now it’s my turn to do my own original research and I wanted to learn more about Donors, and then I thought who would know more about donors? Doctors! So I schedule an interview with Dr.Carmen Febo. Dr. Carmen Febo is a primary care physician and even though she does not deal directly with Donors, etc. she was a great help with the questions and being able to let me interview her with with the short notice. The interview helped me have a better understanding of the importance of finding a donor, being a donor, and the effects of being a donor.


Interview:

Me: What is your chance of living if you find a match donor?  

Dr. Carmen Febo: If you have deadly disease, like kidney failure, heart failure, or liver failure, your life would depend on finding a donor.  The chances of survival have many determinants that include weather this is a living donor, or a dead donor, how close a match it is, how many other conditions you have, how good a surgical candidate you are, etc.  Many of the conditions are better understood now and we have better medicines to combat infection for example, or rejection.  But, what is true is that without the transplant the patient do not have a chance.


That was one of my questions for Dr. Carmen Febo. This hit me hard as it made me realize that a persons life is in the hands of a stranger, and that stranger has no idea how important they are. Its not their fault if they didn't know but only if they could have gotten tested to see if they could save a life.

Margot was 17-months old when she was diagnosed with two of the rarest cancers. But since her parents are mixed she is having trouble finding a match donor. Click here to read her story.


Robin Roberts (left) is a breast cancer survivor and find her match from her sister.  She was aware that because of her race she would have a hard time finding a match donor. Read more about her story here.


That is it for now, the next time you guys will hear from me is when I do my agent of change. What can I do to make change happened? My plan is to host an event to help raise awareness for my issue and will be hosting fundraisers that will be donated to find the cure for cancer. Also I will be writing a letter to Robin Roberts about my cause and because ABC news is having opportunities for people who wants to make a difference to be featured on the show. I will submit my story and how I want to make a difference, and if anything does happened before my blog post #3 I will let you guys know on here.

Annotated Bibliography here

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