In the middle of my junior year of high school, I got a phone call from my mother after she had told me she had been diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. After hanging up the phone, and hearing the most world-shattering news I’d ever received, I knew that my life would change forever. You always think, that would never happen in my life; but everything that seems normal is often shattered by the harsh reality that is cancer. After months of treatment, sickness, and pain, my mom was finally able to have surgery to help her become cancer free. Most cancer patients aren’t so lucky.
Lori Nam, 35 and DMV local, was diagnosed in September 2009, with Stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. At the time she had been working as a clinical pharmacotherpy specialist and had been married for just a year. Her young life had taken a turn for the worst and it didn’t get easier from there. In the short five years following the diagnosis, along with many surgeries and bone marrow biopsies, Nam has received 23 rounds of high dose chemotherapy and infusions. Lori has suffered from cancer three times in the last five years. After being unsuccessful with the treatments thus far, her doctors have resulted into suggesting a bone marrow transplant.
The problem? This type of lymphoma is commonly seen in Caucasian men between the ages of 50 and 85, and since Lori is neither, it is considered almost incurable. So in effort to continue the good fight Lori partnered with the Be The Match Foundation creating her own organization, Swab And Save Someone, looking for “compatible bone marrow donors for Lori and others awaiting transplants.” According to Lori’s Facebook page, SASS: GMU LoriStrong, only 2% of the US population is registered to donate, and of those only 7% of that are Asian, 0.8% of those are Korean, which is the ethnic pool the Lori would need. As it turns out, most ethnic minorities are vastly underrepresented in the National Marrow Donor Registry, which is why they are trying to encourage people to volunteer for a simple DNA swab to find more matches for those looking for a cure.
James Arcieri, the campaign manager and producer for the LoriStrong campaign explains, “I’ve only known Lori for about a month. But, I began to see her in the place of someone in my family or friends. I started putting them in her situation. It was easy to accept that I wanted to help her.” So, despite the slim statistics, team LoriStrong is coming to George Mason University, asking for student’s help. The Beat Cancer: Bone Marrow Donor Registry Drive will be happening on GMU’s Fairfax Campus, starting at 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM February 24th and 26th. The event aims to make this annual event, helping Lori find a donar as well as as the thousands of others after her living in the United States needing bone marrow transplants.
At the event, they will be swabbing people, and looking for volunteers. Ariecri explains that swabbing is, “basically a Q-Tip on the inside of your cheek that brushes up against it for about ten seconds. What they’re doing is taking DNA to help find a match.” Along with this event, you can always go to bethematch.org and volunteer to help in your local communities, and spread awareness. Ariecri says, “we have to help them understand and help them raise the odds. We say this as a reality, we don’t like the odds to change that, so we have to be accurate about it.”
After speaking with James Arcieri about his purpose behind the campaign of the woman he barely knew, he said, “when someone comes up to you and says, ‘can you help save my life’, it was a huge honor and I took it upon myself to try to help her. Even if I can’t save her life, I need to help. It’s her selflessness and strength that inspires me.”
Cancer is a difficult thing, but the most important thing to maintain throughout the process, is feeling like there’s a fighting chance to beat this. Arcieri said, “With this event, we will gain what Lori hasn’t had in a while, which is this simple, necessary feeling of hope.”
To get involved and sign up to volunteer for the event, or to learn more information, simply visit SASS: GMU LoriStrong on Facebook.