Potential donors sought for USC grad student and others with leukemia

Up till six weeks in the past, 31-year-old Caryn Hsu was within the prime of her life.

The graduate pupil at USC was adjusting after shifting from Los Angeles from New York, however in the future, she found bumps rising behind her ears.

A routine bodily confirmed that she had leukemia.

“I by no means in 1,000,000 years would’ve thought I’d get sick,” Hsu stated.

Since then, she’s been present process chemotherapy, however she’s in want of a bone marrow transplant, and none of her members of the family are a match.

Her solely hope for full restoration is discovering an ideal donor by a nationwide system, and the Be the Match registry has stepped in to assist lead donor registration drives, together with one in Santa Monica on Saturday.

“It takes about 5 minutes of an individual’s time. They fill out some data on their telephone … and a swab package shall be mailed to them,” stated Chris Cheng with Be the Match.

Chen stated for sufferers like Hsu, their solely probability of beating this prognosis and surviving is with the assistance of the general public, as there’s solely a couple of 47% probability of discovering a match for somebody who’s Asian within the registery.

Hsu had one plea for the neighborhood.

“If they might take into account getting swabbed and examined, it’s actually easy and it’s free and very easy. In the event that they don’t match with me, perhaps they match with any individual else and will save their lives, as a result of I’m of the demographic that if I don’t get one, I wouldn’t be capable to beat the leukemia,” she stated.