By Here is an e-mail I received today advocating for the giving of B- blood for a 19 year old Korean boy diagnosed with lymphoma:
Dear friends,I am writing this note with the hope that anyone living in Korea with a blood type of B rh negative (B-) would be willing to help a 19 year old boy who has recently been diagnosed with lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. I went to visit him in the hospital today, and now have specific information about him.His name is YooWoon Jeon and he just graduated from high school in February. He has been sick since last October, but was just diagnosed last week. He will require 5-6 chemotherapy treatments, every three weeks. After each treatment he requires 6 doses of platelet, a part of human blood. The problem is, his blood type (B-), is not at all common in Korea. B+ is quite common, but B- is not. If a B- person gets B+blood, it can create problems. Platelet has a storage life of only one week, so its not easy to ship it from other countries.
There are 100′s of thousands of expats in Korea, teachers, business people, engineers, etc… B- occurs much more reqularly in foreign populations than in Korea. That is why I am reaching out to you! Korea has given me so much, and I often wonder how I can return at least a little bit of it. This is one way. I happen to have B- so I went to the hospital today, and am scheduled to give the platelet on Monday. I will just lie down and while I watch a movie or chill out, my blood will be pumped into a machine that will take out the platelet and put the rest of my blood back into my body. The pain is about the same amount as getting a needle.
YooWoon just graduated from high school, and his dream is to go to Yonsei University. Instead, he is in the Yonsei Severence Hospital. If we can all come together, we can help him get back on his feet and he can get back to studying!
Please ask your friends to pass this info around.
His father is called Jay John in English, his Korean name is Jeon Jeong woo ( 전정우). His father works for the Korean branch of Cray Valley, a chemical company. His English is very good, so you wouldn’t have to worry about communication issues.
He can be contacted at:
Jay
010-5048-7678
jeongwoo.jeon@crayvalley.com
If you have any additional questions, feel free to call me directly, 010-6801-0731.
With the large amount of USFK soldiers on the peninsula there has to be someone with B- blood that may be able to help this kid out. USFK has helped find blood donors for Korean patients before and I recommend that the family contact the USFK PAO for assistance.
8:33 pm on March 29th, 2010 1
He could also receive from type O- as well. I am debating whether this is real or not, it seems this kind of request wouldn't be passed all over the internet and instead would be through some form of medical channels.
10:59 pm on March 29th, 2010 2
The person who sent the email works for the KTO. I gave her the contact information for the USFK PAO to work through those channels since USFK has helped with this kind of thing before. Hopefully it all works for the boy.
12:53 am on March 30th, 2010 3
I have O+, how can I help?
Also as with the first comment, what are the proper military channels I would need to go through?
2:19 am on March 30th, 2010 4
Has there been any contact to the base medical facilities about this? I know I personally have B- blood, but in order for me to give I would almost guarantee there would have to be a waiver from base medical staff, or they themselves would have to draw the blood, in order to keep up with the standards and policies.
3:54 pm on March 30th, 2010 5
He is B-, he can not receive blood from any D ph positive (A+/B+/AB+/O+). It would provoke an auto-immune response that could put his body into shock. Type B- is one of the rarest blood types in the world, they can only receive from B- and O- donors.