Published: June 21, 2008 11:01 pm            

Transplant wait

• City residents raising money to help pay for bone marrow transplant

Stillwater resident Rina Fitria needs a bone marrow transplant.

She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in March 2007 at the age of 20 and has since undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatments, but the cancer is still in her body.

Doctors have told her that her only hope of a cure now is to have a bone marrow transplant, she said. The timeline they gave her is short — only a few more weeks.

“They said the most ideal time will be pretty soon,” she said.

Fitria has one problem, but it’s a big one. She needs $180,000 for the transplant surgery.

She moved to the United States from Indonesia with her parents when she was a child. She entered fourth grade in Stillwater and continued school here until graduating from Stillwater High School. She was listed as a dependent on her parents’ visas until she entered Oklahoma State University herself, she said, and got her own student visa.

And therein lies the problem: as an international student, Fitria doesn’t qualify for any federal aid for the transplant.

A group of her friends have come together to help her by raising money for the transplant.

Cara Beer, who said Fitria and her mother, Enny, have been like members of her family, learned of the transplant issue a couple of weeks ago when the two women came to the Beers’ home to tell them about it. Beer then contacted other people she knew would want to know.

The group of friends got together to discuss how to raise money to help Fitria. They have created a website at www.orgs.okstate.edu/iosa/rina.html to tell her story and ask for donations. A link on the page takes visitors to a PayPal donation site. Donations can also be made to the Rina Fitria BMT Fund at BancFirst in Stillwater.

As of Friday afternoon, the site recorded $16,050 in contributions.

It also lists a fundraiser event, the Cancer Schmancer Comedy Jam Friday at the Nightingale Theater in Tulsa. According to the Nightingale’s website at www.nightingaletheater.com/~jeffwok/index.html, the event is free, but donations will be accepted. It may be one of several fundraisers, Beer said.

“A lot of students on campus have a lot of ideas,” she said. “We’re going to support them, but they’re going to have to run with it.”

In the meantime, Fitria has had another chemotherapy treatment and must spend most of her time at home.

“It wipes out my ability to fight off infection,” she said, “so I can’t leave the house unless I really need to.”

        

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