VIDEO. Suffering from acute leukemia, Joseph, 3 and a half years old, is waiting for a bone marrow donation

Three-and-a-half-year-old Joseph is battling lymphoblastic leukemia. During the last dose of chemotherapy, after hundreds of days of treatment and no less than 793 chemotherapies, 4 hours from the last dose, a routine blood test reveals a relapse. Since then, little Joseph has been waiting for a bone marrow donation, a very tedious mission: finding a compatible bone marrow donor is particularly complex: “One in a million chance…”, specifies Katinka Rambert-Cadré, Joseph’s mother. And today, time is running out for Joseph. “It’s a very long journey..”

Joseph’s parents therefore launched a donation appeal to maximize the chances of finding a bone marrow donor compatible with Joseph. As hematologist Anne Huynh explains, the bone marrow is “a factory to manufacture red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells“. Acute leukemia therefore corresponds to the dysfunction of this pool of resources. The hematologist specifies that donating bone marrow does not involve any risk for his own health: “It’s a liquid organ that regenerates every day so we can donate it.”

If you want to donate bone marrow, no worries. The medical procedure is very simple:The main method today for 80% of cases is by taking blood“, develops the doctor. The other alternative is under general anesthesia and consists of making punctures in the pelvis and in the back. “We take a few hundred milliliters“, she details.

To donate, just go to dondemoelleosseuse.fr. We then receive a postage-paid envelope at home, we spit in a tube, we return the tube to the postage-paid envelope. “Joseph and I went to put the envelope at the Post Office and voila, it’s really very simple, it’s free, it’s fast“, explains Joseph’s mother. And it can save his life.