Blood donors needed for a little boy

Luca Campana is a little boy with leukemia being treated at Texas Children's. His CaringBridge page is at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/lucacampana.

He will be undergoing plasma exchange beginning Friday and having surgery Monday, and really needs direct donations of plasma and platelets. Please contact Steve at [email protected] if you meet the criteria below so that he could get you into the rotation at the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center. I don't qualify but I will donate and put him as the beneficiary so that he would get credit for other whole unit donations that do meet his criteria.

To donate plasma, you can be any blood type, but need to be male or a female who has never been pregnant. He also needs platelet donors. Luca does much better when he received directed donations, and the current donors have bled all they can bleed. You must be RH -, so A, B, AB, or O- to donate platelets, and willing to give once a week, or at least every other week.

Luca will be getting lots of platelet transfusions this weekend to get him ready for the surgery Monday, so we need folks to donate now if you can. Please email Steve and let him know if you can help Luca: [email protected].

To direct a donation you just need to tell them it is for:

Luca Campana
Born 6/15/05
Treated at Texas Children’s Hospital

Please share this with your friends, family and colleagues in Houston if you can. Thank you all!

Yuliya
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After losing my daughter to leukemia, I've been serving on the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's board of trustees. This came to me through the society. Even though I don't know the family personally, I know exactly what they are going through. Donors make a huge difference in the physical well-being of these kids because getting directed platelets from one person (instead of pooled units from multiple whole-blood donations) results in much less severe allergic responses and are often much more effective in boosting platelet counts (helping clotting, very critical).

I do hope you guys consider taking an hour to donate, even if you are not the matching blood type. If you are not in Houston, you may want to ask about whether credit transfer, but to be honest I suspect there are kids and adults where you are who could really use you. Remember that platelets only keep for a couple of days so a constant supply is important..

Thanks everybody!

 

Thanks guys. Gregg, you know you can call me anytime.