Hope for Samuel
Meet Samuel Elias Geremew. He is 11 years old and a happy, gentle-natured, young boy. He loves to play soccer with his friends, ride his bicycle and read books and play video games. And he has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL.
ALL is unfortunately the most common type of cancer in children. This type of cancer affects the white cells in the blood, and is characterized by an oversupply of immature cells that stop the body from being able to produce the proper amounts of the other, equally important, blood cell types.
The treatment of choice for ALL is chemotherapy and the aim for these patients is to induce a state of lasting remission. The 5-year survival rate these days is 85%, a huge increase from 0% about 60 years ago. Statistics show that 80%-90% of children will show durable, complete response with appropriate treatment.
Samuel is from Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. The treatment options for Samuel in Ethiopia are minimal, and he has been treated for many years without much success. The time has come for Samuel to seek medical treatment overseas, and it is believed that a decent dose of chemotherpy--like others would receive normally as a first line of treatment in the Developed world--could help to save Samuel's life.
We are seeking your help to fund Samuel's journey and treatment for ALL in Thailand. We are in the process of finding out the best treatment centre for Samuel and we will update this site as we are able to obtain more information. All funds will go directly to Samuel's care. The estimated costs are based on the costs borne by another family in a similar sitauation, for whom their son achieved complete remission following his treatment in Thailand.
Why does this mean so much to us? Samuel is our youngest son's biological brother. We adopted our son in 2015, and have since had the pleasure of meeting Samuel and his Dad, Elias. Samuel is now our family, and we want our boys to have the opportunity to get to know each other in the future.
We cannot do this without your help. Any contribution to help Samuel get the treatment he needs and deserves will be immensely appreciated.
References: For more information on ALL, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_lymphoblastic_leukemia.
