Some time ago we posted about a young woman, Pia Awal, who needed a bone marrow donor to fight her leukemia. A 20-year-old Pakistani woman from London matched and saved her life.
Awal and her fiancé, Apratim Dutta, just had their long-delayed wedding. I can’t imagine what they’ve been through in the meantime. The NYT reports:
On June 30, 2002, Mr. Dutta’s 31st birthday, Ms. Awal was feeling feverish and bone tired. They went to the emergency room at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, expecting that she would be given some antibiotics for the flu… she was found to have acute myelogenous leukemia…
… weeks before their July engagement party, Ms. Awal’s doctor said the leukemia had returned… Mr. Dutta began searching for a South Asian donor whose white blood cells were a genetic match for Ms. Awal. He started a Web site, matchpia.org, to find donors. He made a DVD about Ms. Awal’s situation and tried to get television stations to broadcast it. Finally, through an international donor registry, they found a match in a 20-year-old Pakistani woman living in London.
Mr. Dutta, who loves steaks and red wine, began to eat vegetarian meals with Ms. Awal… As part of her recovery this time, she started eating meat, which gave her the sense of being fully fused with Mr. Dutta…
They were finally married on July 30 in Manhattan at the Tribeca Rooftop… Ms. Awal, who cannot have children because she has had so much chemotherapy, is working on a children’s book about cancer.
Congrats to the newlywed couple.
Click here to add yourself to the South Asian bone marrow registry. There are several booths at India Day parades in the next ten days. In NYC, go to 27th & Madison on Sunday, Aug. 21, from 12-6pm for a simple, painless blood test.
Pia is a friend of a friend. I’ve been hearing about her progress for some time, and was thrilled to read the story in the NYT.
i am scared of/hate needles so much, i refuse flu shots. i was terrified of what the blood test to join the registry would entail– it wasn’t bad at all and it took all of a minute. if fraidy-cat me could do it… 🙂
:+:
looking at that picture makes me happy.
There’s been quite an active campaign to encourage Asian and Chinese donors to register as bone marrow donors here in the UK. The stats really are surprising – a TINY amount of South Asians step forward. So good on you those who have stuck your name down. And remember to give blood too! If you need any extra incentive (other than the little matter of saving peoples’ lives), it saves your money. A friend and myself give blood frequently – you spend a lot less on booze afterwards 😉
talk about a good cry first thing in the morning
Mr. Dutta began searching for a South Asian donor whose white blood cells were a genetic match for Ms. Awal. He started a Web site, matchpia.org, to find donors.
But…but…race is an illusion! Genetic differences between population groups don’t matter — stephen jay gould and PBS and all the good people told me so…
Seriously though, congrats to the newlyweds 🙂
I almost cried, but being a man, I didn’t end up deciding to cry.
apart from the story itself, it was really nice to see two desis being able to be so human in the national media
as cheesy as I will sound, stories like Pia and Tim’s remind of a thing called ‘fate.’ I couldn’t be more happy for a couple I don’t know.
What a beautiful story.
Pia is a friend of a friend who told me all about the wedding. She said she has never seen anyone so happy :).
Wonderful post. I, too, had a good cry this morning.
God bless pia and her hubby with a very happy married life.. I really admire her for her courage to fight and also her hubby for being there for her and giving up his job and everything and taking care of her..amazing human being.. God bless pia with a long life and lots of happiness.. my dad has acute myeloid leukemia, I was in india for 6 months this year running around hospitals taking care of him and I know how painful it is to go through multiple rounds of chemotherapy and the disease relapsing..we are still going through so much and my dad is still fighting hard…I saw little kids as young as 2 yr olds fighting hard. AML is hard to cure and the treatments are so expensive. Hope someday science advances and they find good medicines which do not have side effects like most chemo therapy drugs which kill half the patients. pia is so young and Iam so so happy for her that she found a donar, God bless her with a long life…
This January I donated blood stem cells (which is an alternate way of giving bone marrow) at the NMDP (National Marrow Donor Program). My recepient is somewhere outside US. I have learned that he (I know that its a He and I was told his age) was doing well after the recieving. I will know where he is next January when I go thru’ my one year physical post donation.
He has (or had) Acute Luymphmetic Leukemia (or ALL- I may have screwed up the spelling)
For me the experience was very satisfying. I would recommend everyone to register at NMDP.org and give a blood sample. I had given a sample more than 7 years ago and last september got a call that it had matched someone’s bone marrow somewhere who needed it.