A Small But Courageous Fighter: Aaden Drei Ramones

An outpouring of family, friends, church parishioners and the Filipino community came to say goodbye to .

The 2-year-old son of Andre and Aileen Ramones of Milpitas died from leukemia on April 28.

At the vigil and rosary held May 11, the overflow of people in attendance spilled from the chapel into the lobby of the Lima Family Milpitas-Fremont Mortuary.

The funeral was held at St. John's Catholic Church the following day.

"We would just like to say how we were so moved and touched by the number of people that came during the vigil and funeral," said Aaden's mother, Aileen Andres Ramones.

"Even in death, Aaden was so special that he was able to bring so many people together," she said.

Last August, the twin boy was diagnosed with a type of cancer known as Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML-M7). He received 5½ rounds of chemotherapy and three surgeries. Aaden was a patient at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara where his father, Andre Ramones, works.

In April, he flew to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee to be considered for treatment.

"Through this journey, we never lost hope, we never lost faith and we never let a bad prognosis cause us to not appreciate and be happy with Aaden in every moment we were with him," said Ramones. 

His best chance for a cure was a stem cell transplant, but he was unable to find a donor with a match, including from his twin brother, Andy.

"One thing I've taken away [from the experience] is that it's very difficult to find a donor," said Wendy Uyehara, who graduated from high school with Aileen's sister, Anella.

Jamison Abrencia, 2½, is a Filipino baby from Vallejo who will eventually need a stem cell transplant. He is responding well to treatment for aplastic anemia, said James de Lara, outreach and volunteer coordinator for the Asian American Donor Program.

The nonprofit has organized bone marrow/stem cell drives for both Aaden and Jamison.

There are 10 million potential donors listed in the registry, but a quarter or less are minorities, said de Lara. Ethnicity has been the trend for matches between donors and patients, he said. But the probability of finding a large pool among one ethnic group in the registry is slim.

"It doesn't mean other ethnic groups won't matter," he said, but they are likely to have a lower probability.

But there are exceptions.

At Aaden's vigil and rosary, Andrew Boydon, a church acquaintance who is registered, said he had been a match for a woman in Canada. Boydon is Filipino. He donated platelets in 2002 to a woman who is white.

The two never saw met each other, because Boydon was able to donate at Stanford Medical Center. "We exchanged holiday cards," he said, but later lost touch when she moved.

Register to become a bone marrow/stem cell donor at one of the following drives, and you can help save a life.