{"id":7143,"date":"2014-12-29T17:33:49","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T17:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/12\/29\/please-join-the-donor-register\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T14:15:06","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T14:15:06","slug":"please-join-the-donor-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2014\/12\/29\/please-join-the-donor-register\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Please Join the Donor Register’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Riya Pleads with Asian Community in Last Christmas Wish <\/h3>\n
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A 21-year-old girl, who is spending her last Christmas in hospice care, has one final wish: for people to join the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register.<\/div>\n

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Riya Dandekar, from Solihull, has been told her blood cancer is now incurable, after receiving the shattering news that, despite a potential bone marrow donor being found, she is not well enough to have a transplant.<\/div>\n

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Doctors have told the devastated family that Riya has only weeks to live, and during the time she has left, she has vowed from her bed at the Solihull Marie Cure Hospice to sign up more life-saving donors so that others do not face the same heartbreaking situation.<\/div>\n

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Riya said: “My biggest wish is that every adult, who is medically fit and able, registers as a potential bone marrow donor. Every 20 minutes, someone in the UK is diagnosed with blood cancer and for many, a stem cell or bone marrow transplant is their only hope. Every week a new campaign, a new appeal, is made. All these appeals are for the same thing – to encourage more people to come forward and join the register.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Riya\u2019s proud and loving family are now facing a life without their lively, bright and kind daughter. Her mother, Ursula, said: “We are extremely proud of how brave and selfless Riya has been through her illness and the many painful procedures and months of staying in hospital that she has endured. Even though she realises she does not have long left, she hopes that people will be inspired to join a bone marrow register.<\/div>\n

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“Her legacy, we hope, will have been to raise awareness of how simple, quick and painless it is to register online and potentially save a life.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Earlier this year, the 21-year-old student inspired a huge increase in the numbers of Asian people joining the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register, when she was diagnosed with Anaplastic Lymphoma a few days before her 21st<\/sup>\u00a0birthday in March. Her family launched the \u2018Save Riya Now\u2019 campaign on social media.<\/div>\n

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Before cancer, Riya had an active and fulfilling life. \u201cI took part in ballet, in martial arts and was in the\u00a0Army\u00a0Cadet\u00a0force. I loved trampolining and spending time with my friends. I was working in an Indian restaurant in Birmingham, and I planned to study medicine and be a doctor, like my parents.\u201d<\/div>\n

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But her busy lifestyle was stopped in its tracks when she was\u00a0diagnosed with the rare type of blood cancer. Riya had found a lump in her armpit and began to develop unusual symptoms. \u201cMy clothes were itching me and my skin felt like it was burning. I\u00a0had an ultrasound examination and underwent exploration surgical biopsy\u00a0and eventually was called to a meeting with my\u00a0surgeon.<\/div>\n

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\u201cHe pulled his chair closer to me\u00a0and I immediately thought \u2018this isn\u2019t good news\u2019. The next few moments went into slow motion. He said \u2018You have lymphoma\u2019. I asked, \u2018Does this mean I have cancer?\u2019 And he said \u2018Yes\u2019.\u201d<\/div>\n

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In June, Riya was told that her best chance of a cure was a\u00a0stem cell\u00a0transplant. Stem cells are produced by the bone marrow but the donation is usually through blood, not the bone marrow. For\u00a0her\u00a0to have the best possible outcome, she needed to find a match urgently.<\/div>\n

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She endured eight cycles of chemotherapy and 12 cycles of radiotherapy, leaving her feeling \u2018completely\u00a0 drained, exhausted and helpless\u2019, but these failed to get her into remission.<\/div>\n

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She was told a stem cell, or bone marrow, transplant was her only hope, and faced an agonising wait to find out if a matching donor has been found through the Anthony Nolan charity.<\/div>\n

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At the time she said: \u201cI am a 21-year-old who should be out studying, working, partying, holidaying and discovering myself. But I\u2019m not. Instead I am struggling, crying, hurting, and forever waiting.\u201d<\/div>\n

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One third of patients are able to find a matching stem cell donor in their own family. But Riya sadly found out in June that her brother is not a match for her.<\/div>\n

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Blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan searched the worldwide registers to try to find Riya a match. It is particularly hard for people from Asian and other ethnic minority communities\u00a0to find a donor through the register, as only 4.5% of the people on Anthony Nolan\u2019s register are Asian.<\/div>\n

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A potential match was found for Riya in the USA but unfortunately doctors were unable to move forward with the transplant because she was not well enough.<\/div>\n

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Just seven months after her diagnosis, Riya was told that now her cancer was now incurable and she was referred to hospice care to allow her to live her final weeks in comfort.<\/div>\n

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Riya said: “I want to spread the message that you can be a lifesaver, by donating your stem cells. Just like after a blood donation, your own body compensates in a matter of weeks, so there are no long term side effects. Please register today and make a real difference.”<\/div>\n

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Richard Davidson, Director of Communications at Anthony Nolan, said: \u201cRiya is an incredibly brave, bright and beautiful young woman and we are so saddened that she hasn\u2019t been given the chance to live out the bright future that was ahead of her.<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat is particularly inspiring about Riya is her selfless determination to continue to make a difference for others facing blood cancer, even as she and her family face the most difficult circumstances of all.<\/div>\n

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\u201cI can\u2019t emphasise enough how easy it is to join the register and, if you\u2019re one of the privileged people to come up as a match, to donate your stem cells. For the donor, it is a simple act \u2013 but for someone like Riya, it means absolutely everything.\u201d<\/div>\n

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If you\u2019re aged 16-30, you can give Riya her wish – and potentially save someone\u2019s life – by joining\u00a0<\/strong>the Anthony Nolan register at\u00a0www.anthonynolan.org<\/span>.<\/a><\/div>\n


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Riya Pleads with Asian Community in Last Christmas Wish A 21-year-old girl, who is spending her last Christmas in hospice care, has one final wish: for people to join the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register. \u00a0 Riya Dandekar, from Solihull, has been told her blood cancer is now incurable, after receiving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}