R.I.P. Anh Reiss

[BackInTex]

A great story. A great life.

Why I roll my eyes at the folks who complain about their "struggles". Why I believe success (or lack of it) is grounded in culture, how a person is raised, not how they are "offered or denied opportunity". At least in this country. The opportunities are there for everyone. Some have a longer and more difficult trek (e.g. Anh Reiss, Ben Carson) but the goal, if you have one, if you have the desire to do what it takes, there is no better place than this country to live. That is why so many people around the world risk everything to come here. It is the system in place, or was in place, a system that created winners and losers, more winners than anywhere else but also whose losers are better off than the winners everywhere else. And the definition of winning is defined by one's own definition of success. Or a least it used to be. The media, the entertainment industry, has defined winning at such a high level, most winners think they are losers and are unhappy with their lot. It is sad to see so many unhappy people, thinking they are struggling, thinking they've lost, when in fact they have won.

Houston doctor who gave life to thousands dies at 48

Anh Reiss was a Houston doctor whose passion - almost a religion - was obstetrics. She brought more than 7,000 babies into the world. She felt honored and privileged to be the first face those infants saw

Reiss, 48, died of leukemia Feb. 26. After her diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, in 2009, she became the face of patients in need of bone marrow transplants.

She never found a match herself, which was her only hope of a cure. But she and her family may have doubled the number of Vietnamese bone marrow donors nationwide, and they helped connect some donors and recipients who did match.

Anh Phuong Nguyen Reiss was born in Vietnam. She was about 6 when her devout family sent her to live with Catholic sisters; her mom and dad thought she might make a good nun. Anh was back home just a week later; the sisters judged her too noisy.

Anh was 8 when she and her family escaped Vietnam in the midst of the Communist takeover in 1975. The first leg of their journey involved a helicopter filled with so many people it could barely take off. That was only the beginning of decades of struggle.

[SpacemanSpiff]

One thing I learned from Judy's experience with CML and the bone marrow transplant process is how difficult it is to find donor matches among minority communities. I'm not sure if it's just the fact it's a smaller sample size, or cultural issues, or lack of awareness/testing of donors, but it's dang hard. I recall the coordinator at the hospital said it would have been about a 50% chance right off the bat for Judy, a white female, if a non-relative donor were needed. For most minorities (especially orientals -- again, maybe because of the small sample size of donors) it would be something less than 15%.

[BackInTex]

One thing I learned from Judy's experience with CML and the bone marrow transplant process is how difficult it is to find donor matches among minority communities. I'm not sure if it's just the fact it's a smaller sample size, or cultural issues, or lack of awareness/testing of donors, but it's dang hard. I recall the coordinator at the hospital said it would have been about a 50% chance right off the bat for Judy, a white female, if a non-relative donor were needed. For most minorities (especially orientals -- again, maybe because of the small sample size of donors) it would be something less than 15%.

I've been in the marrow donor database system for 20-22 years. I was contacted once, last year, about being a possible match and asked to complete a survey online. I did and after 3 months was notified that either a better possible match was found or some other treatment was chosen, but that my donation would not be needed for that patient.

My wife has been in the system the same amount of time (we both got tested during the same drive for a co-worker whose son had leukemia who ended up dying a year later after an unsuccessful transplant). She has never been contacted.

[jarnon]

One thing I learned from Judy's experience with CML and the bone marrow transplant process is how difficult it is to find donor matches among minority communities. I'm not sure if it's just the fact it's a smaller sample size, or cultural issues, or lack of awareness/testing of donors, but it's dang hard. I recall the coordinator at the hospital said it would have been about a 50% chance right off the bat for Judy, a white female, if a non-relative donor were needed. For most minorities (especially orientals -- again, maybe because of the small sample size of donors) it would be something less than 15%.

I was swabbed at an event at my Temple years ago. They were trying to increase the pool of Jewish donors.

Then yesterday I got an email from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. It said there are genes that may cause Parkinson's disease that are more common in the Jewish community. My father had Parkinson's. Scary stuff.