Perhaps you’ve heard of Mai Duong in the news. She’s a 34-year-old Montréal woman suffering from leukemia who needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life.
She’s in desperate need of a compatible stem cell donor from her Vietnamese ethnic background.
Héma-Québec says they lack donations from all non-Caucasian ethnicities. Mai needs people of Vietnamese origin to get tested. At the end of this post is a description of how you can help. Let’s hope a match will be found.
An update from the Save Mai Duong Facebook page appeared in my feed today. In it, we learn that Mai’s situation was discussed on Salut, Bonjour! here.
According to Save Mai Duong, Salut, Bonjour! did a good job — even if they did get Mai’s name wrong.
À part scrapper le nom de Mai complètement, Salut Bonjour a fait une pas pire de belle job.
Other than totally messing up Mai’s name, Salut, Bonjour! did a pretty nice job.
Salut, Bonjour! did a pas pire de belle job, and so did the author of the Facebook update — we’ve got some pas pire de bons exemples of Québécois French.
scrapper quelque chose
to mess something up
scrapper le nom de Mai
to mess up Mai’s name
also:
scrapper son char
to total one’s car
(wreck in an accident)
une job
a job
pas pire
not bad
faire une pas pire de belle job
to do a pretty nice job
Here’s how you can help Mai Duong
This is taken from the Save Mai Duong Facebook page:
Mai Duong is a 34-year-old from Montreal who’s battling acute leukemia. For the second time, because life’s a bitch. She desperately needs a Vietnamese stem cell donor in order to save her life.
If you’re in Quebec, you can sign up for a swabbing kit here:
English
http://www.hema-quebec.qc.ca/cellules-souches/donneur/index.en.html
French
http://www.hema-quebec.qc.ca/cellules-souches/donneur/index.fr.html
In the rest of Canada, you can sign up here: http://www.blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.nsf/page/onematch?OpenDocument&CloseMenu
In the US, sign up here: http://bethematch.org/
En France, veuillez vous inscrire sur: http://www.dondemoelleosseuse.fr/devenir-donneur
In Germany: http://www.zkrd.de/
If you have questions, contact Save Mai Duong.
Wow Felix, this is pretty powerful stuff. You are serving a great purpose with this column.
One question – I don’t understand the phrase
“Dans la vraie vie, Mai, a un cou.” – In real life, Mai, has a neck?
I’m sure that I’m missing something here and you are just the guy to shed some light. Thanks!
Yeah, that’s what it means. The photoshop job must have given her a shorter than normal neck. 😉