Dear UCLA

UCLA

Dear Chancellor Gene Block and Vice Chancellor Janina Montero,

I didn’t know that the first “real world” job I’d encounter while finishing my bachelor’s degree at UCLA would be a highly aggressive attempt to fight for own my life. Cancer seems to thrive on chaos, especially when a biological deviation of the norm manifests in a young, healthy person’s body. Since my diagnosis with acute leukemia over eight months ago, I have been struggling to gain a sense of order and composure to what has been happening to me and other patients. I have seen firsthand the devastating look of horror and disbelief among patients on my hospital floor when they are denied the opportunity for a second chance at life when race and ethnicity matter in marrow donation matches. To be quite frank (but in a joking manner), it’s almost as if it could have been a nightmare that would have woken up Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from the grave.

I didn’t know that my dreams of becoming a teacher would unfold so rapidly not in the form of being in a classroom among young children, but as an advocate against cancer. I quickly began to blog publicly about my experiences in order to provide a semi-transparent view of living with leukemia at 23 while retaining the integrity of my family’s privacy. Only a few weeks into my diagnosis, I began a grassroots movement to take as much control over the cancer by providing some education to my community about the realities of bone marrow donations and their live-saving opportunities to a host of other illnesses as well. To this very day, I use my story to gauge awareness, even though cancer spreads like wild, delicious gossip among those who may not understand or would want to sympathize with its overwhelming prospects.

I didn’t know that I would find myself thinking about what I learned in an old course I took at UCLA entitled ”German 59: The Holocaust in Film and Literature” as an intriguing way to cope with what was happening to me. Surprisingly, I found inspiration in the bravery of Holocaust victims and examined the human condition under extreme circumstances. During long hospital stays that lasted over a month, I read the works of Nelson Mandela to find the endurance to stay in isolation just as he did when he spent 27 years in prison before his release to become a national figure in South Africa.

I may not have been the best student at UCLA. But if there’s one common denominator I know among Bruins is that of excellence in what we do for our communities. I also think many people do not know that we’re not just students who attend class in flip flops – that we’re very much activists … that while we do a lot of talking and talking, we turn those actions into materialized form by making it happen. Once we get an idea going, this school “runs with it up a storm” and makes sure it turns into a feasible reality.

My greatest wish from this personal tragedy is to find matches for other patients in dire need for their lives to be saved, but it’s absolutely crucial that I have the university’s full support. I hope the visit today from one of my best friends, one of my best advisors, and the best coordinators from Asians for Miracle Matches can provide a glimpse into the sheer urgency of this unprecedented issue:

“Human greatness consists ultimately in nobly accepting the responsibility of being what we are; human freedom, in the personal working out of our fate in terms appropriate to ourselves. Though we may be innocent, we are all potentially guilty, because of the germ of self-sufficiency and arrogance in our nature. We must remember always that we are only man and be modest in our own conceits. Our place in the total pattern of the cosmos is only finite. That is not to say that it may not be glorious. Whatever our circumstances, we can achieve and endure through to essential greatness. It is not what fate has in store for us that matters, but what we do with it when it comes. No power, no imposition, no catastrophe, can uproot the personal dignity of each human being. The seeming caprice and unfairness of life, striking down some down and pampering others, is only the beginning of the Great Encounter. Both the choice and the destiny are ours.” — Paul Roche, Foreword to Oedipus Plays of Sophocles

Sincerely with the best of my intentions,

Janet