By Mayra Elisa Buitron
Extra!
Chicago Police Officer Blanca Magallon, wife and mother of four, was diagnosed with leukemia earlier in July. She’s currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System and is looking for a bone marrow donor that could potentially save her life.
Earlier in the summer, Magallon, whose favorite activity is exercising, started feeling winded and noticed she was bruising very easily in her legs. She attributed it to working out on the machines at the gym.
It wasn’t until an emergency appointment with a doctor that she was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) a blood condition that developed into leukemia, a type of cancer that affects bone marrow and blood, increasing the risk of infections, hemorrhages and death.
Since then she’s been in and out of the hospital.
“Right now, they wake me up throughout the night for medication and I receive it throughout the day. Blood is drawn every day at 4 a.m. in the morning. Your immune system drops completely, you have to wear a mask all the time. I’m sick a lot and there’s the chemotherapy,” she said. “I have my moments when I cry. You’re just never you.”
Magallon’s husband, Ashoor Hoyou, and the rest of her family has been supporting her.
“I always used to call her my Wonder Woman, she’s the strongest in the family. I’m not used to seeing this side of her,” he said. “Every day the children want to know when their mom is coming home. They ask if the doctor fixed her.”
An organization called Be the Match, provides resources to patients with life-threatening diseases and making transplants possible. They’ve partnered up with Magallon’s family and friends to aid her in finding the right donor…
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