The road for a cancer patient has many different winding curves, and the journey is not an easy one. Oftentimes, a cancer diagnosis takes a person unaware and can leave them feeling helpless. Dina, a 45 year-old American living in London, England, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in 2009. Here is her story.

It was June 2009, and Dina was living a very active life in Chicago with her family when she received the life-altering news of a cancer diagnosis. Taking care of her husband, being a mother to two small boys, and working out daily, she never thought a regular check-up with her doctor would indicate something was seriously wrong. However, when Dina went for routine blood work, the lab work showed alarming results. At first, her physician believed the lab messed up, but after giving another blood sample for the lab to check, it was concluded that her red cell count and platelet numbers were very low. Two months later, in August, Dina went in for a bone marrow biopsy, and she was officially diagnosed with AML.

She immediately went into treatment: an intense, heavy hitting round of chemotherapy. Dina had a total of five rounds of chemotherapy to prevent the illness from developing further, and the cancer went into remission for nine months. A month after the last round, August 2010, her husband was transferred to England for work, and the family relocated to London.
 
Life settled back down for the family of four, and they even adopted a new puppy. However, this past June, Dina’s cancer resurfaced. Her doctors offered her a myeloablative transplant, an intense and aggressive treatment to completely eliminate the cancer, but because it is a very dangerous method of treating AML, Dina chose the other option: a bone marrow transplant.
 
Dina says, “Cancer makes your life different; you take nothing for granted. I hope to maintain [the want to do everything] when the transplant is in my history. I see flowers blooming in November, and its overwhelming; most of the time, I want to be involved with my kids, help their schools, help their teachers as much as possible as I get through this.”

Her search for a complete stranger to save her life has not been easy. Twice, a donor has been found, but both times the donation did not happen because the donors did not pass the medical exam. Her community has been incredibly supportive, and her husband has been her own personal superhero. However, she is still in immediate need of a bone marrow transplant and a match must be found. There are several ways YOU can help!

First, swab your cheek and join the bone marrow registry. Finding a donor is based on ethnicity, and Dina’s best chance is to find someone of Eastern European/Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. Though you may not have the same background, we still encourage you to join; you could save another patient’s life!

Another way to help is to make a donation to sponsor someone's swab kit. Every processed sample adds another volunteer donor to the global registry, increasing the odds of a successful match for leukemia patients worldwide. Lastly, pass her story onto a friend; you never know who could be that perfect match.