BOSTON (WHDH) - A Wrentham teen is fighting a rare form of leukemia and needs a stem cell transplant, but the color of his skin is making it hard for him to find a donor. 7’s Amaka Ubaka shares his emotional journey– and how you can help.
Seventeen-year-old Davonte Johnson knew something was wrong when he came back from a trip for Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend and he didn’t feel quite right.
His mother, Shemere, rushed him to a doctor.
“I didn’t even get off the plan yet before I called his primary care,” she said. “I said I had to call because something was just clearly wrong with him.”
After multiple tests, a phone call changed their lives.
“They said, your son has leukemia,” she recalled.
Davonte said he was in shock. He has since learned he has a rare form of the cancer that is resistant to chemotherapy.
The treatment offers some help, but a stem cell transplant could potentially cure him. He is most likely to find a match with someone who shares his ethnic background. But Black people are under-represented in the national registry of stem cell donors.
Now Shemere is urging everyone to join the registry to help her son — and many others.
“Think of it if it was your child, your mother, your sister, your brother. You would want somebody to show up for you. So show up,” she said.
Davonte is staying hopeful.
“I’m confident. I do feel like I will find a match eventually,” he said. “And I also believe that everything happens for a reason. And although that reason might not be clear to me yet. The reason is there because I see how it’s changing other people’s lives.”
If you’d like to join the National Donor Registry, you can get swabbed Thursday at New Mission High School in Hyde Park. It’s a registration drive planned in Davonte’s honor.
The drive will be held at the Metropolitan Avenue high school from 2:15 to 6:15 p.m.
If you are 18-40 years of age and can’t make it to the event, you can join the registry from home by clicking here.
Learn more here: https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/donate-blood-stem-cells/how-to-join-the-donor-registry/
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