Woman who once advocated for more Hispanic bone marrow donors needs donation herself

Photo by Rachel Denny Clow, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Cristina Rodriguez sits with her dogs Coby (left) and Flower at her home. Rodriguez's friends and family will have a recruitment event Saturday to find a bone marrow match for the 31-year-old former Zumba instructor, who has non-Hodkgin lymphoma.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Former Zumba instructor Cristina Rodriguez leads a flash mob at La Palmera mall in December 2010, a month before she stopped teaching because she developed a pain in her hip. She later was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Photo by Rachel Denny Clow, Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times file Cristina Rodriguez, who raised awareness about the importance for Hispanics to donate bone marrow and stem cells, now needs a donation herself.

CORPUS CHRISTI Cristina Rodriguez once counted herself among the lucky blood cancer patients who could survive on chemotherapy and stem cell treatments from their own bone marrow.

Buoyed by this blessing, she advocated for less fortunate Hispanics who needed transplants.

Now, the Corpus Christi woman who raised awareness about the importance for Hispanics to donate bone marrow and stem cells needs a donation herself.

It was an ironic twist of fate made worse by her understanding of the cold hard facts: Hispanics have a harder time finding matching donors than do other ethnicities.

"I knew the statistics and all that so I'm like, 'Oh great. I'm another statistic basically,' " she said.

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Woman who once advocated for more Hispanic bone marrow donors needs donation herself