Giving back

Each year, over 10,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with life-threatening blood diseases like leukemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell anemia and need a stem cell transplant to survive.

Because the best matches are usually found within a patient’s ethnic background, Black, Latinx, and other communities of color are drastically underrepresented in the national registry — making it harder for patients of color to find the donor they need.

That’s been the case for my dad, a Black Panamanian Navy veteran. He was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia — and we haven’t yet found a donor willing and available to give the stem cells that could save his life.

This month, for African-American Bone Marrow Awareness Month, I’ll be sharing ways we can change that. It starts with us.