New Bone Marrow Drives for Janet Liang This Weekend: Could You Save Her?

Janet Liang, the 25-year-old Amador Valley High School alum with cancer, still hasn't found a bone marrow match and there will be a new donation drive this weekend.

In coordination with Thriving Lives Foundation, ValleyCare Health System is hosting bone marrow drives at the Pleasanton and Livermore locations to help find a match.

The first drive will be from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Monday, April 30 in the Cafeteria Conference Room at Valley Memorial Center, 1111 E. Stanley Blvd. in Livermore.

The second drive will take place from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 1 in Cafeteria Conference Room 3 at ValleyCare Medical Center, 5575 W. Las Positas Blvd. in Pleasanton.

Liang has Leukemia, and for the last few months, has been publicly begging people to attend bone marrow drives so that she may find a Chinese-American match. Liang badly needs a bone marrow transplant, and in a video she put on YouTube earlier this year, she tearfully told her audience, "I don't want to die."

In a February video, she is noticeably more upbeat.

"I had no idea that (last) video would reach so many people," she says in the video, posted on YouTube on Feb. 27.

"Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the initiative to spread the word."

The expected transplant date is June, so she'll need a match before that.

"I just wanted to update you all," she says in the video.

"I didn't want to leave you hanging. Everyone take care, and please keep holding drives, please keep up the good work and thank you."

First diagnosed in August 2009 while finishing her International Studies degree at UCLA, Liang underwent chemotherapy and went into remission.

But then last December, she relapsed, and after finding out that her younger brother was not a match, she was told she had until April to find an unrelated bone marrow donor. That has been extended.

Liang splits her time between chemotherapy and other grueling treatments at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, spending time with visitors, and sitting in front of her laptop scrambling to organize marrow registration drives and compel strangers to help increase her chances of survival.

Bone marrow matches are dependent upon matching tissue types rather than blood type, and since Liang is Chinese-American, an Asian donor is most likely to be her match.

Local schools have held drives for her, but so far, they have not yielded a match.

To give a bone marrow sample, you only need to fill out registration paperwork and do a cheek swab. It takes less than 10 minutes.

To find out more, go to Liang's website.

Click to read about past bone marrow drives locally.