Gaurav completed his 4th and final round of chemotherapy this week. This had got delayed by a week/10 days since Gaurav had come down with a fungal infection in the lungs for a major part of the week ending 02-Feb; this had caused him to be hospitalized for a major part of that week. Post the final round of consolidation, Gaurav is now back home recovering.

We do not have any updates on donor search results.

For Bone Marrow Transplant, we have been in touch with numerous oncologists across the world; notably in USA, Israel, UK, Australia, Italy & India. We are working on getting quotes from these hospitals; we have already received quotes from many. Once we have formal quotes from all the hospitals, we can decide the best possible option for Gaurav’s treatment.

Alternately, today Gaurav visited Vaidya Balendu Prakash , an Ayurvedic doctor in Mumbai. Dr. Prakash seems hopeful about Gaurav’s case.

One area that we continue to require immediate assistance is introductions to the media (newspapers, TV channels, radio stations, magazines, etc) in order to broad base our campaign. While we have had one-off success in reaching out to some channels (like India TV, DNA newspaper), this initiative continues to be a work in progress. Any assistance on this front would be most appreciated.

A part from this, may I request all to post links to www.helpgaurav.com on as many blogs, websites and online forums (Facebook, Orkut, Friendster, etc). This will help us immensely in raising awareness about Gaurav’s cause.

Lastly, the total financial contribution has now reached an incredible INR 98L (Approx US$ 217,000)!! Our sincerest thanks to all the contributors. This has been an incredible leap of faith for all of us and I must admit, I am overwhelmed by the support that we continue to receive every day. Needless to say, this is still a journey (with total cost of the operation being upwards of US$ 300,000) and hence any support is most welcome.