The Chamberlin family, whose 4-year-old daughter Maya has a rare blood disease called hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), are members of Christ Episcopal Church, the church I attend. In September Maya was diagnosed with HLH and only a bone marrow transplant can ultimately save her life.
On December 6 the Los Angeles Times ran a comprehensive article about Maya, her parents and brother and the need for people around the world who require bone marrow matches. Maya is in Cincinnati in treatment now and articles have been written about her across the country. The bone marrow match will be hard to find because of Maya's mixed racial heritage as you will discover when you read the article above.
Yesterday Christ Church hosted a bone marrow match clinic with but at 72 years old, I am beyond the age limit (18-60). But more than 75 people came between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to fill our questionnaires and have the swab test which is sent to an international bone marrow registry. At Rector Bob Cornner's blog you can read more about Maya and what she looked like prior to becoming ill. It is unlikely any of these people will be a match for Maya, but they may be a match for someone else. You may be a match for her someone else yourself. Check out Be The Match International Bone Marrow Registry.
You can follow Maya's progress at her parents Caring Bridge blog. In the find a blog location, just type in "concentrate" and you can follow her day by day.
Here are a few photos of the people volunteering yesterday at Christ Church's marrow match event. If you double click, the photos will show more detail.
This is what people saw when they first approached the church.
Next the potential donors received a questionnaire to fill out. The lady on the right was our parishoner who arranged the event.
Inside the church, more volunteers registered people and the next table passed out the swab kits. Doesn't the sanctuary look beautiful? Our hall partially burned down more than 18 months ago and the insurance company hasn't settled. We do a lot of things inside the church that we used to do in the hall.
And here's the painless swab test done by a parish couple so their results can go to the marrow registry.
