{"id":200694,"date":"2019-02-03T22:20:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T03:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=200694"},"modified":"2019-02-03T22:20:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T03:20:22","slug":"community-searches-for-stem-cell-donation-for-filipino-canadian-man-from-richmond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/02\/03\/community-searches-for-stem-cell-donation-for-filipino-canadian-man-from-richmond\/","title":{"rendered":"Community searches for stem cell donation for Filipino-Canadian man from Richmond"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In order to survive, Lintag needs to find a stem cell donor, with Sarah Jasmines from Canadian Blood Services saying, \u201cYou only find matches within your own ethnic group, but in Martin’s case, he’s Filipino. That’s about one percent of our database, so you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. For some communities, that haystack is a lot smaller than other,\u201d adding that there are currently no matching donors in their registry. (File Photo: Martin Lintag\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Filipino Canadian community of Richmond, British Columbia gathered to find a stem cell donor for 30-year-old Martin Lintag, who was diagnosed with two types of leukemia days after his birthday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lintag shared that after diagnosis, his \u201cmind was kind of at a standstill,\u201d saying, \u201cIt was paralyzing.\u201d Despite chemotherapy and other forms of treatment, doctors told Lintag that the cancer was not going away and he had only three months to live. In Lintag\u2019s words, \u201cI’m subconsciously counting down how much time I have left.\u201d He shared that his condition is worsening by the day, explaining, \u201c<\/span>My body has basically broken down while waiting for a match. Just this past week, I learned that my cancer cells jumped from four percent to 60 percent.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In order to survive, Lintag needs to find a stem cell donor, with Sarah Jasmines from Canadian Blood Services saying, \u201cYou only find matches within your own ethnic group, but in Martin’s case, he’s Filipino. That’s about one percent of our database, so you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. For some communities, that haystack is a lot smaller than other,\u201d adding that there are currently no matching donors in their registry. <\/span><\/p>\n

In order to find a donor, Lintag\u2019s loved ones organized a stem cell swab at Vancouver\u2019s Croatian Cultural Centre last Saturday, February 2, testing out volunteers aged 17 to 35 DNA by swabbing their cheeks in hopes of finding a match. One of the organizers Adrienne San Juan shared that the event also honors those who are going through similar cases as Lintag, saying, \u201c<\/span>We just wanted to pay it forward and help other Filipino families go through this and help them with doing the drives.\u201d <\/span>Similar drives have also been initiated in Toronto and Edmonton.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lintag reacted to the event saying, \u201cIt’s really encouraging that I’m not alone in this fight.\u201d If ever a donor has been found, Lintag said that \u201cit would mean the world to [him,\u201d adding, \u201cIt would be a second chance at life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Filipino Canadian community of Richmond, British Columbia gathered to find a stem cell donor for 30-year-old Martin Lintag, who …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":200722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-gianna-llanes","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}