Kids, especially 6-year-old kids, are good at getting attention. But not many kindergarten-goers have attracted the kind of national attention that Jasmina Amena has. And all that attention may just save her life.
Jasmina, who has a rare form of leukemia that normally afflicts adults, has been interviewed from her hospital room in New York City by People magazine, The New York Daily News and other publications too numerous to name. A video of her on YouTube has helped drive thousands of people to provide a cheek swab sample to DKMS, the world’s largest nonprofit marrow donor center. She’s become a magnet for a string of celebrities who have visited her bedside to help publicize the 6-year-old’s plight, including the singer Rihanna.
“When I saw the video of Jasmina it broke my heart. It is so unfair that for a black patient it’s so much harder to find a bone marrow match,” Rihanna told a reporter from People magazine, who covered the visit. “Jasmina has acute leukemia and she needs a bone marrow transplant to live.”
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Doctors have managed to keep Jasmina alive with repeated rounds of chemotherapy. The search for a donor was complicated by the fact that Jasmina is African-American and was adopted. There were no family members available to provide a match, so the search went nationwide. But the side effects of the chemotherapy drugs have kept Jasmina out of her kindergarten class at P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village. She’s spent many months confined to a hospital bed to protect her fragile immune system from infection.
After Jasmina’s story appeared on the People magazine website, “more than 5,000 donors came forward,” Katharina Harf of DKMS said. “Rihanna has already helped DKMS save many lives.”
And now, it appears the attention has paid off. DKMS has found a marrow match, and Jasmina’s doctors are preparing her for the procedure. With any luck, Jasmina will be ready to return to school and her friends before long.
For more information on how to help, please visit OneForJasmina.com and DKMSAmericas.org.
Photo courtesy of DKMS America.