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Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

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41–50 of 78 posts

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#41
post #15
post #10

Fuck Cancer. ^ | | | | [Edit: Anyone who has gone through it, or has had loved ones deal with it knows what I'm talking about.]

It's also important to realize there are dozens of different kinds of cancer even though they all share the same word. What freaks me out is women have a 1 in 3 chance of getting cancer and men 1 in 2 : http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/lifetime-probabili...

People eventually die. If they don't die of cancer, they die of heart disease, or liver failure, or some other part of their body wearing out. So those stats don't freak me out... the relevant ones are how many people under 75 or so get a disease.

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#42
Just a note, even if you're not South Asian and able to help Amit, thousands of people are diagnosed with Leukemia and other diseases which may require a marrow transplant. Take the test he linked to, it may help save a life.

http://www.marrow.org/Join/Join_Now/Join_Now.aspx

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#44

Appeals like this always bother me. You can weed out incompatible donors by simply comparing blood types and yet no one ever posts compatible blood types or even their blood type. This seems like such a simple thing to do to increase your chances of finding a compatible donor. There's always a limited number of free tests available but how many are wasted* on people with the wrong blood type? The tests are expensive…

Is that the only thing they're looking for when they say they need a match? Just blood type? Or is that just one of the larger factors?

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#45
post #26
post #23

Here's an unpopular thought, but one that may not be on the list of "things too taboo to think about" for HN readers. What if marrow donation was a for-profit industry, or at the very least a nonprofit or government-run industry that allowed people to sell their marrow at market prices? Would Amit and thousands of others in his position be resorting to begging for access to life-saving treatments, or being put on wai…

It's a slippery slope. If it was for-profit, countries like China would be pulping political prisoners for it. Actually maybe not just China, I am sure some states in the US would make it mandatory for prisoners to donate to pay for their own prison sentences and maybe judges would take a cut too, increasing their willingness to find people guilty (judges are already allowed to own stock in privately run prisons).

If that was the case, wouldn't prisons already force inmates to sell their plasma/sperm? I'm pretty sure that would get struck down in a court.

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#46
post #26
post #23

Here's an unpopular thought, but one that may not be on the list of "things too taboo to think about" for HN readers. What if marrow donation was a for-profit industry, or at the very least a nonprofit or government-run industry that allowed people to sell their marrow at market prices? Would Amit and thousands of others in his position be resorting to begging for access to life-saving treatments, or being put on wai…

It's a slippery slope. If it was for-profit, countries like China would be pulping political prisoners for it. Actually maybe not just China, I am sure some states in the US would make it mandatory for prisoners to donate to pay for their own prison sentences and maybe judges would take a cut too, increasing their willingness to find people guilty (judges are already allowed to own stock in privately run prisons).

This won't make those scenarios any more likely. Its perfectly legal to sell organs already, as long as they aren't _your_ organs, but rather organs someone else donated.

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#47
post #23

Here's an unpopular thought, but one that may not be on the list of "things too taboo to think about" for HN readers. What if marrow donation was a for-profit industry, or at the very least a nonprofit or government-run industry that allowed people to sell their marrow at market prices? Would Amit and thousands of others in his position be resorting to begging for access to life-saving treatments, or being put on wai…

How about people can sell it and the gov't has to pay for it when someone needs it? Seems a lot less distopian that way.

I don't see people holding out for that much more money than the surgery costs, and given the alternatives available to insurance companies I don't see why they wouldn't pay for the organ. Keeping someone alive on dialasis, say, is really very expensive.

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#48

Just a note, even if you're not South Asian and able to help Amit, thousands of people are diagnosed with Leukemia and other diseases which may require a marrow transplant. Take the test he linked to, it may help save a life. http://www.marrow.org/Join/Join_Now/Join_Now.aspx

Just a regular white guy, but I joined -- thanks for the info.

Re: Photojojo, Jelly founder needs bone marrow match to save his life

#49
Best of luck to you. I have been fighting off AML for the last 4 years. Keep a positive attitude through all your testing and chemo. You have a long road ahead and always laughing and making jokes will be your best friend.

EDIT:: Also people are right, everyone should join the marrow list. bethematch.org. You just swap your mouth and send it back. You might not ever be called, but one day you might save someones life.

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