Please Help

This is the post sent out from the folks who are holding a drive for a bone marrow transplant for our friend Justin Van Hoy that I mentioned in my last post. Please feel free to repost. Thanks!


In conjunction with City of Hope, we are hosting a bone marrow drive for Justin at our office next TUESDAY JANUARY 6th, 2009

It will take place between 10am and 2pm...
(So go to work late or come on your lunch break!)

Taking place at the R. Rock Office:
3111 Los Feliz Blvd. Suite 100
LA, CA 90039

O: 323-669-8819

There is NO COST but DONATION of any amount is requested...

They will be doing mouth swabs, no blood! So easy...right? There will be a consent form you need to fill out prior to getting swabbed. The process shouldn’t take long but we’ll have some snacks and drinks if you need to wait. This is open for ANYONE that wants to help out, so SPREAD the word!

Please be aware that by getting tested for Justin, you will be added to the national bone marrow donor registry. When a volunteer registers as a potential donor, his/her tissue type is listed on the donor file and is compared with the tissue type of all patients in need of a transplant. You can withdraw at any time, but keep in mind that you may be someone’s only hope for survival.

Please drop us a line to let us know if you are coming so that we can gauge the number of materials needed. For more information about Justin or the drive, email (sonja@rrockenterprises.com) or call us. See you TUESDAY!


Please try and come by if you can

Also here are a couple other ways to take part. Justin sent out this email yesterday. Lend a hand if you can

Hi everyone. First off, I hate sending a mass email about anything, but this is really the best way to do it. I'm sure I forgot to put some names on here, so pass this around as you see fit...

In case you have not heard, I have had some bad luck and relapsed from my remission from the cancer ( leukemia ). I had a 30% chance of relapsing, and unfortunately that 30% has happened. This time around there is no chance to cure it with regular chemotherapy though, and I have to have a bone marrow transplant. My brother and sister are not matches, so we are having to go searching for an unrelated donor. With this being said, It would mean the world to me if any of you would take the time to see if you are a match. To get tested is really simple and only requires a mouth swab or a very quick blood test. 

Some of my information you will need:

• Name: Justin B. Van Hoy ( Please tell whomever you are dealing with that my name is Van Hoy and not Vanhoy. The spelling is important, so make sure they put a space in between Van and Hoy )
• Date of Birth: 2-27-1981
• Medical Record # 0017538881 ( Kaiser Permanente Hospitals Southern California )

I will be doing my transplant at City of Hope ( http://www.cityofhope.org ), which is just east of Pasadena. It is a really amazing cancer center and highly regarded, so its really great they are only about 10 miles from my house. If you are in the greater LA area, you can go directly to City of Hope to donate blood and get tested at the same time. There is a $50 fee for processing the marrow sample, but if you donate blood too, then the cost is waived. If anyone finds it hard to spend the $50 ( I know times are tough right now, so  let me know and I will reimburse you myself.) If you have any questions and are planning on going to City of Hope, you can call 626-301-8483. It works best to make an appointment if you are going up there. 

You can also request to have a kit mailed to you. This way you can do the test yourself and mail it back. Have your results mailed back to you, and you can send them to me here at my home. Because of medical confidentiality blah blah blah, they cannot have the results sent directly to me. But this way I can give the results to my people and they can sort everything out. My mailing address is:

146 South Avenue 56
Los Angeles, CA 90042

If you aren't in the LA area,here are some links for registering with the National Bone Marrow Registry, the entire registry is a worldwide network and is also linked in with the Red Cross, so there are lots of places to go if you aren't in the LA area. Here are links to figure out where the closest is for you:

http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_Now/join_now.html
http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_in_Person/index.html


I hate asking anyone to have to do this, and I think you all know me well enough that I wouldn't unless it was really important. Let me know if you have ANY questions at all and I will get them answered for you. You can also email my new wife with questions.. holly603@gmail.com   Please feel free to send this email along to anyone, I need as much help as I can get. Post it on your blogs or dump it in your email blasts, etc.

Hope everyone had a great holiday. Talk with you soon.


-justin


Thanks so much