{"id":8294,"date":"2012-01-18T18:03:22","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T23:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/?p=8294"},"modified":"2012-01-18T18:04:17","modified_gmt":"2012-01-18T23:04:17","slug":"1010-for-amit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/18\/1010-for-amit\/","title":{"rendered":"10\/10 for Amit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Remember Amit Gupta<\/a>? He was diagnosed with Leukimia in September 2011 and thus began the largest social media driven internet friendly bone marrow donor recruitment campaign we’ve seen to date. He has something to share today.<\/p>\n\n

\u2026 After\u00a0over 100 drives organized by friends, family, and strangers, celebrity call-outs, a bazillion reblogs (7000+<\/a>!), tweets, and Facebook posts, press, fundraising and international drives organized by tireless friends, and\u00a0a couple painful false starts,\u00a0I\u2019ve got a 10\/10 matched donor<\/strong>! You all literally helped save my life. (And the lives of many others.) [amitgupta<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n

I am stunned by this good news! As we’ve blogged before, South Asians have a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding a donor match and to find a perfect match is even more of a slim chance. This is one of those circumstances that highlights how social media campaigns can turn into real life successes! Of course, Amit still has a battle ahead of him.<\/p>\n\n

Tomorrow, I\u2019ll be admitted to Dana Farber in Boston for 4-5 weeks.<\/blockquote>\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n

First I\u2019ll get a second Hickman line<\/a> to allow direct access to my heart (for meds and for nutrients if I\u2019m not able to eat). Over the next week, the docs blast my body with a stiff chemo cocktail to try and eradicate all traces of cancer cells. In the process,\u00a0the immune system I was born with, and my body\u2019s ability to make blood, are destroyed.<\/strong><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Next Friday, I get my donor\u2019s stem cells by IV. I start on immunosuppressants to prevent my body from rejecting them (I\u2019ll be on them for 12-18 months). For these weeks I\u2019ve no immune system, so I\u2019m severely vulnerable to viruses and bacteria. My hospital room and hallway become my world.<\/blockquote>\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Meanwhile, the stem cells make their way to my bone marrow and, with some luck, start producing platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells.\u00a0At this point, my blood type changes to the blood type of my donor. And my blood will now have my donor\u2019s DNA, not my own. <\/strong>[amitgupta<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I am reminded of Sameer who also had a 10\/10 donor match – but unfortunately suffered from complications from the transfer<\/a>. Amit has a tough battle ahead of him, but he has a large community that is rooting and praying for him. Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember Amit Gupta? He was diagnosed with Leukimia in September 2011 and thus began the largest social media driven internet friendly bone marrow donor recruitment campaign we’ve seen to date. He has something to share today. \u2026 After\u00a0over 100 drives … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56,25,47],"tags":[114,113,200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8294"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8302,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294\/revisions\/8302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}