By Lee Chi-dong
Staff Reporter

For Kathleen Kim, nothing is more urgent now than to find a match among the potential donors for her six-year-old daughter, Emily. The Rockville girl is diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and must have a bone marrow transplant by early July to survive.

Emily’s newborn brother, Jack, has been tested, but to the dismay of Kathleen, 33, and her husband, John proved not to be a match.

Now Emily’s best chance for a donor is someone who is Asian, particularly Korean.

In February l998, doctors in Rockville, MD, determined that Emily had leukemia. Her cancer went into remission, but she was forced to undergo two and a half years of chemotherapy.

But in April this year, medical tests showed that the leukemia was back and attacking her central nervous system.

Emily is back on chemotherapy. Should a bone marrow donor be located, she will be given full-body irradiation and the transplant.

Now time is of the essence, as Kathleen puts it. Kathleen is a trademark-examining attorney at the Patent and Trademark Office, and her husband Jack 35, is a pharmacist at the National Naval Medical Center.

Family and friend of Emily’s parents have worked to organize l5 bone marrow drives in the Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland area, specially targeting the Korean-American community.

A match has not yet been found, and possible donors are being sought as far away as Korea.

The Korean Marrow Donor Program in Seoul said it would check whether there’s a match from among some 25,000 potential Korean donors whose DNA records it possesses.

"If Emily’s doctors request us to do so, we are willing to do that," said Lee Young-min at the KMDPl23@unitel.co.kr.or fax her at 82-2-752-9428.

In addition to the emotional strain, the Kim family will need to financially support the continued care of Emily and to fund the ongoing testing of potential bone marrow matches. The family’s health insurance does not cover the screening necessary to determine whether a person is a match.

At $l,000 a test, the Kims face substantial out-of-pocket expenses in their search for a donor. It is estimated that $35,000 must be raised to cover the cost of the bone marrow testing.

To benefit the Emily Kim Fund, the Korean American Coalition and the Asian Pacific American Bar Association are co-hosting a wine testing and art show on Friday at Club Daedalus on Vermont Avenue, NW. A minimum of tax-free donation of $l5 is requested. Catering for this benefit has been donated by the Korean restaurant Woo Lae Oak and Cafe Asia.

Kathleen’s friends at the Patent and Trademark Office will hold a bake sale on Thursday to help defray some of their expenses at the office, which is located at the southern end of Crystal City, VA.

Howard Friedman, a patent office colleague, has buttons with Emily’s picture, and expects a contribution of $4 per button.

Friedman urges federal employees to donate their annual leave to Kathleen. She has about eight weeks of donated leave to draw on, but doctors have told her to expect to be out of work for about eight months to care for Emily after the bone marrow transplant.

Information about how to help Emily is available at www.EmilyKim.8m.com.