Chennai has always been upfront when it's about coming together for a good cause. And we've witnessed that many a time in the recent past. Now, its heart beats for Blumen Rajan Sathya, a 27-year-old from Chennai, who's fighting blood cancer and awaiting a stem cell donor. His friends from school and college have come together to put up a signature campaign for this youngster and also raise awareness about stem cell donation, at Grand Mall (Velachery) on Saturday and Sunday. "Thanks to Blumen's friends this was planned only on Wednesday night and they've put together everything in just a matter of two days. Blumen had been quite popular in school and college for he was a state-level athlete, a guitarist, and he made friends with lot of people who're now in different fields, including film and music industry, medicine, media, etc. Now, they're all coming together to support the cause," shares Carolyn Pinky, Blumen's elder sister. Giving more details about the campaign, Carolyn, says, "The main idea behind this signature campaign is to create awareness on cancer and stem cell donation. In fact, there are many people talking about stem cell donation and how it's done during the campaign. As for the funds for his treatment, we are providing a barcode which those interested can use to contribute to the fund. His treatment costs roughly around `40 lakh. And till now, we've already collected `37 lakh." Reiterating the importance of creating awareness on stem cell donation, Dr Girish Subash, who's a close friend of Blumen, says, "Stem cell donation can be done only when the donor is alive, kicking and well, unlike other donations. It's a slightly complicated process, but not harmful in any way to the donor. The awareness we need to create is that stem cell donation is not painful, dangerous or scary. In Blumen's case also, though they are thousands of people coming forward to help him in terms of funds, the number of people who actually came to get the test done for stem cell donation is less. How it's done is that you put cannulas on both hands of the donor and his blood goes through a machine and comes back to the person. It's like an additional loop in the existing blood vessel circuit. And the machine will cultivate the stem cells from the blood directly." Another childhood friend of Blumen, Abishek Rengasamy, says, "We've managed to collect this much money in just a week's time. I am sure we will be able to raise the balance `three lakh in the next two days. So, the idea behind this signature campaign is not to collect money, but create awareness on blood cancer and stem cell donation. I am confident that Blumen will be back completely recovered after the treatment. So, before he left for Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, where he's admitted now, I asked him what he wanted to do after coming back, he said 'I want to completely work for cancer fighters'. So, we don't want to stop this with just helping Blumen, but continue helping others who are needy." Meanwhile, Carolyn says that they are still looking for a donor for Blumen. "We've already had a camp in Chennai looking for donors. Around 200 people gave blood samples. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a perfect match out of that. Only one in a lakh will match with the patient's stem cells. Now, we're waiting to hear from Kolkata. They've found one person from Mumbai whose blood sample also matches with that of Bluman's," shares Carolyn.

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As Blumen fights cancer, city creates awareness on stem cell donation - Times of India