Family hopes to find bone marrow match for 13-year-old boy

FAIRFIELD – The family of Elym Choun is hoping to find a bone marrow donor who can help their 13-year-old loved one suffering from a rare blood disease.

To increase their chances of finding a donor, the family set up a booth in Fairfield when RAGBRAI passed through on Friday, July 26. The booth was set up by Elym’s aunt Jade Kaiser of Keota, who chose to set it up in Fairfield because it would be one of the closest stops, and because she has family in the area such as Angie Greiner.

As RAGBRAI riders walked their bikes east along Broadway Avenue, members of Elym’s family handed them cards with Elym’s picture on it and a QR code that they could scan with their phone and be taken to a website where they could learn how to get a swab kit to see if they were a bone marrow match with Elym.

According to the card the family distributed, “[Elym] was an active sports-loving kid that started feeling sick while active in track. After losing sight in one eye, his parents took him into the ER. After being admitted into the U of I hospital and much testing, he found out that due to a virus, his body started fighting his own cells.”

Doctors refer to this condition as severe aplastic anemia, and it means that Elym needs to travel from his home in Mt. Vernon to the Stead Family Children’s Hospital in Iowa City for a blood transfusion every week.

“Until he can get his bone marrow transplant, he can’t fight it off,” Kaiser said. “They have to replenish his blood each week just so we can keep living.”

Kaiser said the family is praying that, with enough exposure through RAGBRAI, it will find a match, which she refers to as akin to “finding a needle in a haystack.” She said that, because Elym is part Cambodian and part Caucasian, the number of potential matches for him is lower than if he were 100 percent Caucasian.

“The registry is not diverse,” she said. “There are not a lot of Asian people on the registry.”

Kaiser said the fortune thing for potential donors is that the National Marrow Donor Program will pay 100 percent of the cost of the donation, which is similar to donating plasma.

“You sit in a chair for a couple of hours, they run it through, give it to him and it can save his life,” Kaiser said.

Those wishing to learn more about Elym’s case and to find out if they are a match can visit bethematch.org, or text fightforblood to 61474. Donors must be between the ages of 18-40.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com