New bid to find donor for Lauren
For nearly two years, Lauren Menegola has fought leukaemia.
She battled through the shock of being diagnosed with the disease at 21 and several rounds of chemotherapy. She remained resilient, even after a relapse, just weeks after seemingly recovering.
Ms Menegola is a fighter and now she is in a fight against time.
The 23-year-old has acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer. She needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life.
Her rare tissue type has meant a match could not be found among the 200,000 bone marrow donors in Australia, nor in the 20 million donors worldwide.
But Ms Menegola will not give up and neither will her family and friends.
Following an appeal on New Year's Eve, an even bigger campaign has been launched by her friends.
Ms Menegola's best friend, Corina Young, and her mother, Julie, have distributed posters throughout Perth and sent thousands to the Eastern States and overseas.
"We've printed them in two different languages so far," Julie Young said.
Adshel has joined the cause and yesterday unveiled 10 Perth bus stop shelters with the poster.
Ms Menegola was too weak to leave hospital but her sister Jade, 21, and brother David, 26, attended the launch. Jade said the family were overwhelmed by the support they had received.
"At one point we were told she had only two to three weeks to live," she said. "The chemotherapy has extended her time but we need a donor match as soon as possible and the sooner the better."
A spokeswoman for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service in WA said there was a big surge in people registering to donate bone marrow directly after the family's first appeal.
For more information, visit the Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry at abmdr.org.au or contact the Australian Red Cross Blood Service on 13 14 95.
