Dennis, Part 2

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Dennis’ procedure went well. The procedure itself took an hour and a half or so, and he’s been recovering since. He told the nurse he didn’t need pain meds today, so it sounds as if things are okay. Hopefully he won’t need them tomorrow, but I expect he’ll be very sore for the next couple days.

It’s some sort of amazing serendipity that one of my close friends’ fiances gets called to donate. I grew up with Dennis’ fiance (Melissa) and have known her since early elementary school. Funny anecdote: when he told Melissa that he got the call to donate, her response was, “So you’re going to do it, right?”

They’re a badass couple.

I’m really in awe of what he’s done.

Dennis

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Dennis in Benin
Dennis (left), recently back from his Peace Corps post in Benin, Africa

My friend’s fiance, Dennis, is donating bone marrow tomorrow morning at 6:30am for a 60 year old woman in California whom he’s never met.

He’s undergoing the more invasive marrow donation (through the hip) procedure at Georgetown Hospital.

If you read this, please say a prayer. For the procedure, a speedy and pleasant recovery for Dennis, and the woman in California who needs this transplant and the loved ones affected by her illness.

Thanks.

35 Donors This Week

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VOPC College Service BM Drive

The response today from the college service was overwhelming. While I knew some of them, I didn’t have any real semblance of a relationship with most of the people in that room, and yet out of a room of 25 people or so we had 18 people register to be donors. It wasn’t what I was expecting.

Coupled with some of the people that met up with me earlier this week to register, that brings the total for this week up to 35.

Our parents’ generation is not our generation. A lack of minority donors doesn’t have to be a problem that persists in our lifetime.

I knew it was true. I knew it.

Finding Inspiration

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It’s 11:xx PM on Saturday evening, and in 9-some hours I’m running another marrow drive at my home church. The hope this time is to speak to some of the college kids who are back for the holiday.

I’ve been in this position before. Music playing quietly from my speakers, reclining in my chair and looking at the ceiling, trying to determine exactly what the appropriate message is for the audience I’ll be speaking to. Not that I have a huge amount of time to speak — I’m guessing 5 minutes — but I’ve come to learn that 5 minutes isn’t a short amount of time, either. It’s enough time for one emotion. But what emotion should it be?

Eventually the words will come, I’ll play with them a bit and I’ll go to sleep semi-ready for tomorrow. I’ll look over the words a couple times tomorrow morning and then service will come and I’ll do my thing.

I wonder where those words come from. It’s not as if I have some overarching speaking strategy when it comes to specific demographics. But I do know what I say tomorrow to the college kids won’t be the same as what I said to the adults a couple months ago. I have a feeling, from somewhere, for some reason, that the message for the adults is not the one that the college kids need to hear. They need to hear something different.

I’m not sure why I feel that way, but the feeling is very real.

NMDP: TEDxMidAtlantic Drive

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TEDxMidAtlantic

I volunteered with the National Marrow Donor Program at TEDxMidAtlantic on Saturday in DC. Getting to the building was an adventure; I had to take in a box of supplies so I had to drive in, and every other road in DC was closed down for a marathon/walk/HORSE SHOW at Verizon Center. It was raining pretty hard too. So I parked in a garage 12 blocks away and walked to the venue, carefully holding my umbrella over the 25 pound box of swab kits since I didn’t want to get those wet. I thought my arms were going to fall off by the time I got there.

TED was really cool, and I anticipate going to one as an audience member soon. The marrow drive was somewhat of a success — we registered 21 donors which is great, but only a fraction of those were minorities. I don’t know if any of them were South Asian, which was the target group we were going for in honor of Amit Gupta.

I was finally able to meet the NMDP Northeast drive coordinator Juliette, and she is both awesome and hilarious. Very generous with her time and energy in pursuing the cause of recruiting donors, in addition to being a wealth of insight into what it takes to logistically run a successful drive. Turns out fundraising is a much, much bigger issue than I originally anticipated. It was awesome working with her and she gave me a lot of great advice about Cheekswab, which she thinks is a fantastic idea.

We ran into a couple of famous folks, which was cool. Reggie Watts was a super nice guy and tweeted our cause. Gbenga Akinnagbe, who was Chris Partlow in the HBO series “The Wire,” registered to be a donor. I consider The Wire as my favorite television series ever, so it was great to meet the guy face to face. Also a super nice guy.