May 08, 2010

Afonso has found a donor!

Dear Friends,

We write this message under an enormous confusion of feelings.

Thank God, Afonso has found his matching donor! It is a great relief for us knowing that our son will be able to receive the final phase of the curative therapy with higher probability to cure this damn sickness, which decided to cross our path in the yet so short period of life of our dear Afonso.

We now close a cycle and open a new one, the cycle of the bone marrow transplant, of many risks, of much anxiety, with a long period of recovery, but also a cycle of big, big hope. Hope that this sickness will never, EVER come back and that our son will have a new life, starting now, precisely when he his about to turn 7 years of age.

We want to thank so much, deeply from the bottom of our hearts, all those involved in, one way or another, in this solidarity campaign around our son and we sincerely hope to have contributed that today or tomorrow more lives can be saved throughout the world. We also want to express our profound acknowledgment to the whole medical team and nurses who allowed us to reach this far and to the team involved in the search for Afonso's matching donor.

This was a very troubled period of our lives in which we grew, we learned, we lived every minute very intensely, and at this point in time, we can only thank you for being by our sides, for spreading the word, for dearly embracing this cause.

We will continue fighting against Leukemia and help all those in need. We can no longer be indifferent after living what we lived, after seeing what we saw, after feeling what we felt. Please, do not be indifferent!

A big THANK YOU to you all,

Graça and Andre