Help Vinay & Sameer

Thanks to all of you who have pushed Sameer & Vinay’s campaign forward in the past few months to get 23,000+ new people into the National Bone Marrow Registry through over 400 drives. As many of you know, Vinay found a 9/10 match (www.helpvinay.org) from a committed donor, which is great news. Other patients have also started to find a match, which means we are saving lives.

Sameer Still Needs Help
Our friend Sameer still needs our help to cure his leukemia. Doctors have still not found a 10/10 bone marrow match that is needed for his transplant. Time is running out before less established, alternate therapies must be tried in September.

Have You Registered? Have All of Your Friends?
Drives are taking place around the country throughout August – let’s take advantage of spreading the word to your South Asian friends this weekend. For one reason or another, there are MANY people who haven’t registered yet. This is the last chance for Sameer!

Drives are taking place this weekend in these plus other locations:

Livermore, CA
Chicago, IL
Houston, TX
San Antonio, TX
Portland, OR
Boston, MA
Many more cities…

Remember, registering is EASY and just takes a few minutes!

Thank you!

By Sundeep Ahuja

One of my favorite stories of Sameer goes back to when I was interning at a startup company that he’d founded with another guy, Robert Chatwani, back in 2000. The company was called MonkeyBin, and we were launching a ‘beta’ (as in ‘early’, not ’son’, for you hindi speakers) version of the site at Stanford University. There was this big kick-off party planned at what Stanford students affectionately called the “co-ho” (short for coffee house…why coffee house was too long to say I have no idea). We’d flier’d the campus before hand so the co-ho was packed…a few of us were anxiously waiting for Sameer and Robert to show-up with materials we could pass out (the point of the event), and lo-and-behold in walks Sameer in a monkeysuit. Sameer was SO excited about this launch party — SO excited about his start-up in general — that he went out and not only bought a MonkeySuit for the event, but special ordered an “extra-tall” suit for his lanky frame so he could wear it himself. Everyone kinda turned when he walked in…stared for a second…and then got back to drinking (er..coffee, uncle/auntie). Ha…I’m still smiling just typing this out.

Since those days working with Sameer as “Intern #1″ at MonkeyBin, to his wedding when Sameer forgot to ask for a female horse for the Bharat (yeah…don’t ask), to my recent trip to India earlier this year when I stayed with Sameer for several days, he’s been nothing but the warmest, most genuine, and most helpful of friends. I like to use the word mentor because he’s taught me so much, but he thinks that makes him sound like he knows what he’s talking about.

If you’re reading this and are South Asian, please please please get registered as a bone marrow donor. Registration takes minutes, donation takes a few hours, and you could save a life. If you’re already registered, don’t stop there. We’ve got just one chance at this. Let’s win.

We are preparing for another weekend of drives but in the meantime you can read an article that was published in Nirvana Magazine about Sameer (PDF).

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to update everyone on how Sameer is doing. Since he finished his first round of consolidation chemo a few weeks ago, he’s been settling into a routine in his Mercer Island family home. He’s under his mom and dad’s tender, loving care! He goes back and forth to the clinic almost every other day. When I’m not physically with him (because I’m always emotionally with him!!!), he goes alone to get his blood draws. More often than not, he needs some type of blood product, either blood transfusions or platelet transfusions. They tell us that his “machinery” isn’t functioning properly anymore. This will all be fixed once he undergoes his transplant.

When a “normal” person has low hemoglobin levels (red blood cells that carry oxygen), one can feel tired and low energy - not our Sameer. He barrels through his day, going to appointments, managing his care, catching up on emails, making sales calls, etc. as if he’s perfectly healthy! He overcomes all of the physical effects of his illness with a strong drive to live as normally as possible. We love that about him, although it makes us worry and watch him carefully, but we realize this drive is what makes him special!

Overall, he’s our energetic and independent Sameer! It has been frustrating and worrisome to learn almost every other day that he needs more blood products, but that is par for the course. We’re glad that he’s been feeling well otherwise - much of it due to the blood products!

All of you are in our thoughts daily as we hear about the momentum around increasing donor registrations.

Love!

Reena

By: Reena Bhatia

Do you know what it feels like to be carried through the crowd at a huge gathering on top of peoples’ hands? Where you have to trust the hearts of the people below you to keep you going. Well, I didn’t know how that felt before Sameer was diagnosed with AML, now I do. It’s all those hands that are taking us to our goal of 50,000 new registrations. Both Sameer and Vinay are being carried by those hands, and Rashmi and I along with them.

We have been tremendously moved by the stories of people wanting to do drives, people that do not personally know any of us, people that love us - all putting valuable efforts into what is most necessary for us right now. You are all changing the face of this need. Hopefully all of the efforts these past few months and the awareness that you’ve helped bring to the issue will make it unnecessary for anyone who is diagnosed with a blood cancer to have to wonder if they’ll find a match in time.

All those hands are making a huge difference in how we solve this problem for future patients. There aren’t enough words in Webster’s to describe how much gratitude and how humbled our families, Sameer and I feel when we think of all of your contributions.

Let me give it a try with a simple, “You Rock!!!”

Our friend, Sameer Bhatia, was just diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), which is a cancer of the blood. He is in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant. Sameer is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, is 31 years old and
just got married in 2006. His diagnosis was confirmed just weeks ago and caught us all by surprise.

Another friend of ours, Vinay, was also diagnosed with AML and also requires a transplant (many of you may already be familiar with Vinay's campaign). We have teamed up with Team Vinay in order to build greater awareness of how you can help.

3 Things You Can Do!

The greatest likelihood for a bone marrow match for both Sameer and Vinay is from someone in the South Asian community - however, very few South Asians are actually in the bone marrow registry. This is where we need your help.

1. Please get registered
Getting registered is very quick and requires a simple cheek swab. Team Vinay has organized a nationwide campaign and we need you to get registered by visiting a local drive. Drives are currently taking place all around the country, including throughout California, Washington, Michigan, Illinois, New York and many other states. Please see the full list of locations here: http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=event.

2. Spread the word
Please share this web page with at least 10 people (particularly South Asians), and ask them to do the exact same. Please point your friends to the local drives and ask them to get registered.

3. Visit Vinay's site
To learn more, please visit www.helpvinay.org. The site includes more details on how to organize your own drive, valuable information about AML, plus FAQs on registering. Please visit http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=node/108 for more information on the cities where more help is needed. Thank you for getting registered to help Sameer and Vinay fight and win against leukemia.

Thank you, Friends of Sameer and Vinay