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June 7th, 2004 02:23 pmThe past two weeks have been about as ho-hum boring as any I've ever lived. Sure, they've been full -- really full, in fact, considering all the end-of-school madness and deadlines. But life itself has felt, I don't know, on hold, or on edge, or just treading water -- sort of like waiting for the next phase to begin. I'm not sure why this is; I'm terribly process-oriented as opposed to product-oriented, and very aware of "the journey" and "being here now" and yadda yadda yadda (fill in whatever new age cliches suit best). I'm usually pretty comfortable in my skin and in my lot in life, so this crawling-out feeling is a little... different.
But then last Thursday I got a little, tiny, minor miracle over the phone. A call from the Red Cross, saying that I am a *potential* match for a bone marrow donation. And all I could think was "Wow... what a gift." Truly. What a gift to me, if I can donate some bone marrow and maybe, just maybe, help to save somebody's life. A 36-year-old man with leukemia, they said. Whoa.
So many emotions over this... I can't even imagine what it would be like to have such an evil, awful disease as leukemia and have to hope against hope that somewhere out there a match would be found. I went to one of those community bone marrow drives several years ago, when a young local lad was in dire need of a match. It was one of those tears-in-the-eye things, to see the huge outpouring of people giving blood samples and signing up for the marrow registry. Sadly, no match was ever found for the boy, and he died a few years later. But at least a lot of samples were added to the registry that year.
So tomorrow I'll go in for some more blood tests, and I guess from that they'll be able to determine if it really is a good match or not. Then it will be from one to three months before they decide on the next step, and which procedure to use. I worry about the delay, and the man's health -- I know I'd go insane over the wait. I just hope and pray that it'll work out for him, and that he'll be able to live a long life in good health.
But then last Thursday I got a little, tiny, minor miracle over the phone. A call from the Red Cross, saying that I am a *potential* match for a bone marrow donation. And all I could think was "Wow... what a gift." Truly. What a gift to me, if I can donate some bone marrow and maybe, just maybe, help to save somebody's life. A 36-year-old man with leukemia, they said. Whoa.
So many emotions over this... I can't even imagine what it would be like to have such an evil, awful disease as leukemia and have to hope against hope that somewhere out there a match would be found. I went to one of those community bone marrow drives several years ago, when a young local lad was in dire need of a match. It was one of those tears-in-the-eye things, to see the huge outpouring of people giving blood samples and signing up for the marrow registry. Sadly, no match was ever found for the boy, and he died a few years later. But at least a lot of samples were added to the registry that year.
So tomorrow I'll go in for some more blood tests, and I guess from that they'll be able to determine if it really is a good match or not. Then it will be from one to three months before they decide on the next step, and which procedure to use. I worry about the delay, and the man's health -- I know I'd go insane over the wait. I just hope and pray that it'll work out for him, and that he'll be able to live a long life in good health.
