Nurul's Blood Cancer Fund

To all my friends, family and the world of social media:

To those who do not know me, my name is Zarin Bhuiyan and I'm an engineering student who was born and raised in Queens, NYC. Please take a moment to read this story.

This is a story about a 26 year old boy named Nurul Islam. He lives in Bangladesh (a third world South Asian country for those who are unfamiliar) with his elderly parents, who he financially takes care of. He was always a smart kid. He has many friends, always did exceptional in school and studied to be a dentist. In Bangladesh, dentistry is a lacking field. There aren't many clinics that provide dental treatment in Dhaka (the capital of Bangladesh) let alone the rest of the poverty-stricken country. Nurul wanted to help alleviate this issue to whatever degree he could manage. And so he and three of his friends decided to open up a dental clinic in the slummy neighborhood of Mirpur, Dhaka. He had just begun seeing his own patients in May 2015 when he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Yes, it's ironic that as soon as he began to treat his own patients, he became one.

ALL is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow makes too many lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). He was admitted to a hospital in India because Bengali hospitals are almost always substandard in their resources and capabilities. Nurul was treated with chemotherapy for almost a full year in the attempt to kill the cancer cells before his doctor decided it just wasn't working. He'd need a bone marrow transplant. The procedure would replace his damaged bone marrow with healthy bone marrow stem cells from a donor.

The cost for this procedure is 56 lakh taka which translates to 56 * 1281.810 = $71,781.36.  Nurul's family is neither well-off nor poor and thus they were able to sell all of their assets to raise $51,272.40. They're short of $20,508.96. It shames them to ask people for money, but in desperation they ask you.

It's heart-wrenching to imagine the state that they will be in if their only son passes away for a mere $20.5k. He's all they have. He's their breadwinner, their hopes and dreams. They raised him his whole life to be a medical student and to do good for Bangladesh (God knows the country really needs it). Collectively it is more than feasible to raise this amount. Let's all do what we can to bring this boy a long and healthy life.



Sincerely,
Zarin Bhuiyan