Saving lives made simple
This is Vinay Chakravarty. He’s the brother of my college classmate. He will die unless he finds a desi bone marrow match.
All you have to do is type in your address.
They mail you four Q-tips.
Brush them inside your cheek and drop them in the mail, postage paid.
If you match, usually all they do is draw some blood and isolate the stem cells. And you can save a fellow desi’s life.
It’s a no-brainer.
Update: Canadians can register online here.
Vinay’s friends say register-by-mail is slow and Vinay needs more in-person registrations to survive.
on Saturday, June 9th, 2007, 3:03 am in Health › 
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thanks so much Manish for blogging on this.
my dad passed away of Acute myloid leukemia , the same as vinays.
my dad went through 2 rounds of chemo, we even tried medicines from US. He relapsed. vinays looks like same case vinay relapsed too.
aml leukemia blast cells multiply every 8 hrs..my dads blast cancer cells used to take over his body in 24hrs multiplying in thousands..survival chances are really rare without a transplant.and my dad used to bleed all over because he could not make platelets at all as his cancer cells took over..
Hope your friends brother vinay finds a donar. I emailed a lot of my friends after reading ur post and a lot of them registered, u never know..where there is a will there is a way.
thanks again. this means so much to me..
Dear Friend
What an amazing idea we will link it to helpvinay.org
However I want you to know that if people mail it in, it takes TWELVE weeks. That is late for Vinay. The best way to contribute is to go to a HelpVinay Drive — these drives are listed at helpvinay.org under “upcoming drives” and are EXPEDITED for all patients waiting (including Vinay) we get the results in 2-3 weeks!
This is a great contribution to demystifying the process…thank you SO much from Vinay and Rashmi in Boston!
Manish, thanks for your help and assistance. I think by increasing awareness and dispelling fears we (as collective s.asians) can come together and help give the gift of life back to many many others that are in need. My brother and my family are extremely blessed to have such good friends and well-wishers in the community…Please consider being a committed donor. YOU CAN save a LIFE.
-bharath (vinay’s brother)
thanks Manish..I didnot even know that u could order kits by mail and organise a drive until I read it on ur website..we got kits from samar and ran a drive at an Indian event at the company last week and we are also organising a drive during Indian Independence day celebrations in Indianapolis on August 19th.
Iam the lead bone marrow drive representative organising the bone marrow drive on august 19th 11am to 3pm at military park Indianapolis as a part of India day celebrations in Indianapolis.
Last two days I tried hard to get volunteers to volunteer with me for the drive, I have one friend coming, and Iam still looking for 1-2 volunteers to help me with the drive..
any ultrabrown readers in Indianapolis to help me?
Volunteers need to go through a half an hour training that samar wants volunteers to take, it is an online cd training and if someone can spare an hour or two on august 19th that will be wonderul..If u want to volunteer and are from Indianapolis, please let me know..