Be The Match.

So, today I am writing to encourage you to sign up to be a bone marrow donor.  Over the past few months so many people have offered their help in so many different ways.  People are so good and so genuinely want to give.  Sometimes I feel guilty that we have so much help given to us that we essentially have all our bases covered, and I wish I could give everyone a way to help. 

Tomorrow is a day that we have anticipated for the past few months with hope and gladness and fear.  It is the day of the bone marrow transplant.  Tanya will receive stem cells donated from her sister, in a procedure that we expect to replace her damaged bone marrow, wipe out her leukemia, and give her new life.  Through this procedure I expect to be able to keep my wife by my side as we create the future we’ve dreamed of together.  We expect her to continue to be a mom to our little boy, to love him and help guide him through childhood and adolescence and on into manhood.  It means everything to us to have this possibility.  We have this possibility because she has a match.

On August 7th, seemingly out of nowhere, we found out Tanya had leukemia.  It was as scary as you can imagine.  Within a week we found out her type of AML would require a bone marrow transplant or her chance of long-term survival would be pretty slim.  Siblings are always the first place to look, and it weighed on us to wonder what happened if one of her siblings didn’t match.  What then?  I won’t give you all the details here because that’s been covered elsewhere on this blog.  But it was scary.  On September 5 at 12:23 pm Tanya sent me a text message to tell me that her sister is a match.  I was at  work at the Omaha VA, in a small and cluttered office on the 11th floor.  I stared at the message for a few seconds, and as I felt the tears welling up I moved to get up and close the door.  Then I just stood crying in the middle of that little room, by myself, and thanked God for this act of mercy.  It meant everything.

A month or two ago I stumbled upon a news article (I tried to find it again today, but no luck so far) about a woman who had died while awaiting a bone marrow transplant.  More accurately, she died while awaiting a suitable donor to be found who would actually agree to donate.   Three donors had been found, but when called upon, each of them had backed out.  And I suppose while trying to find yet another match, this woman’s time eventually ran out.

I did find a different article this week about national sports/news-personality Robin Roberts.  Last year the initial news of her need for a bone marrow transplant caused an %1,800 increase in new donor sign-ups.  A similarly large spike in donors occurred after news reports of a young asian boy from the UK in need of a bone marrow transplant, and without any suitable donors in their national registry at the time.  Fortunately for him and his family, a donor was found after broad efforts to appeal for more donors. I don’t think we expect Tanya’s situation to cause an %1800 increase in donors, but maybe we can get a few.  Maybe we can help a few people out there who are reeling from a new and scary diagnosis.  Maybe we can give a few people hope.  

And now here is a way for you to help.  Sign up to be a bone marrow donor.  You can do it here, at bethematch.org.  I promise they won’t cut you open and take out all your bones.  When you sign up they’ll send you a registration kit including a cheek swab which is all that is used to determine your tissue type and potentially match you to recipients in need.  So maybe you can be the match for someone.  If they would have already had a match, maybe you can be a better match.  Please sign up.  And if you are ever actually called upon to donate, please follow through.  It can mean everything.  

Here is the link.

...and here is a video from their website that Tanya and I just watched, which may or may not have made us cry: