Recently, a family living in Babylon NY, lost their only child a three year old boy named Joey Horny, to Leukemia. During Joey's treatment, his family realized the vast number of people, not just children, affected by cancer on Long Island. Joey's family is trying to educate people about this problem.

Here are a couple of ways you can help!
Donate blood and platelets on a more regular basis. (Cancer patients must undergo numerous transfusions just to survive.)

Another way is to register yourself on the Bone Marrow Donor List. This is a list of people throughout the world willing to help by donating their marrow to patients with blood born diseases. There are two ways of registering with the bone marrow registry. One is a simple blood test, The other is umbilical cord blood from a newborn.

Umbilical Cord Blood
This is a way to help which most people are not aware of. When a woman gives birth, she can choose to store the umbilical cord blood for her child/family's personal use (for a fee), or she can donate it to one of the many Cord Blood Registries FOR FREE This is something that many people and even doctors don't realize ASK QUESTIONS - LEARN MORE. That blood being thrown away, may save some child's life.

New York is not self sufficient in our blood supply, only 2% of the population donates blood, so we are forced to import blood from Europe, where they have a surplus. The New York area alone imports 150,000 units of blood per year, and as of May 1, 2002, that too is being stopped, due to the possibility of infection from Mad Cow Disease.

For more information on finding a blood drive in your area or information about getting yourself placed on the 'Bone Marrow Registry', contact your local Blood Service Center. Or contact Joey's family at liljoey@optonline.net or go to his website.