Daniel Mădălin Răduță

I started receiving answers from abroad, from clinical facilities more experienced than our Romanian ones in the stem cell transplant field. Although I didn’t receive answers from all of them, doctors from two Italian facilities appreciated that the relapse risk is high based on the medical data and the disease evolution.
I was writing in a previous post that my doctor’s recommendation would be to not attempt a stem cell transplant. Still, he was hesitant enough about this and he accepted the Italian doctor’s opinion. I realized why: an oncology hematologist like my doctor is experienced in diagnosis and chemotherapeutic treatment of blood diseases. His field of expertise is not stem cell transplant; of course he knows about it and can state an opinion about the opportunity of a transplant. But a transplant specialist knows a lot more about this because he is directly involved in seeing the benefits and assessing the risks associated with this procedure on a lot of patients. That’s why the final recommendation about the opportunity of a transplant must come from a transplant specialist.
So I need a stem cell transplant. Unfortunately this cannot be done in Romania because I don’t have a compatible related donor. In many Western European clinical facilities transplants from partially compatible related donors are successful and the doctors may decide that this kind of procedure would be appropriate for me. If this can’t be done, they would search a non-related donor in international donor databases.
Now let’s get to the financial part of the problem. The costs of such a procedure are starting from 120.000-150.000 Euros in European hospitals. I’m not a business man nor do I have a highly-regarded job in the Romanian government. Our combined incomes have not allowed us to build a wealth of such magnitude. So, no matter how hard it would have been for me to ask for any help before I was diagnosed with leukemia in October 2009, I am now asking for help from anyone willing to donate any amount of money for helping my cause.