Sandy & Chris Pablo

My hanai brother, Chris Pablo, was memorialized yesterday.  It was a final public sendoff for a man who is the heart and soul of my book, The Marrow in Me.  The picture on the cover is of me recreating Chris Pablo’s great golf ball discovery.  For those who need a refresher, or those who are new to my blog and The Marrow in Me story, Chris found a special ball in his basket at the driving range some 14 years ago.  The ball had the words BEAT LEUKEMIA stamped on the side.   Chris was diagnosed with the same disease just weeks prior.  Finding the ball gave him hope that he would find a cure for his cancer.  He did, with a bone marrow transplant that came from a man missing most of his legs.

By the time we got around to creating the cover shot of The Marrow in Me, Chris wasn’t well enough to do it.  So I did it for him.  We’d lose Chris a month after the book was released, but he had a chance to read through much of it.  He called to playfully scold me, “You kept me up all night and made me cry,” he said a few months back.

I’d be honored if you’d read the book to get to know the man behind the video clip below.  Without Chris I never would have been a bone marrow donor myself.  And because of Chris sharing his story, 86 other people searching for a bone marrow donor got their match and went to transplant too.  The book is inspiring, witty, tragic and triumphant.  Some have compared it to Tuesdays with Morrie.  A sizable chunk of the proceeds is going to cancer treatment and research programs, including The Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry, which played a key role in Chris’s transplant and mine.  And if you really want to honor Chris, please click here to register as a potential bone marrow donor.  That’s probably the best way we can honor his memory.  Aloha and Mahalo, Kevin.       

Watch Video Clip of Chris Pablo Memorial

I start most days with the newspaper.  It’s a habit and it’s my homework.  Much of what I read I’ll be talking about in some way, shape, or form later that night on Comcast Sportsnet Central.  I usually read the sports page while bobbing up and down on the elliptical machine at the gym.  But sometimes you have to change the routine and that includes the reading material.  Today I saved the sports page for last.  When I read Bob Ryan’s column, I almost fell off.

Boston Globe Sports Columnist Bob Ryan

Bob wrote a column that had little to do with sports and everything to do with life and the mighty struggle to stay alive.  The story was about one of Bob’s favorite athletes over the years, former Boston College and Pro Basketball Player Danya Abrams.  Actually the story was more about Danya’s 11-year-old daughter Tatyana, a sixth grade schoolgirl, who has acute myelogenous leukemia and is desperately looking for a bone marrow donor.  If you don’t know the dyanmics of how bone marrow matching and transplants work, let me be the educator.  Finding a match goes almost exclusively along racial and ethnic lines.  And that’s a problem because Tatyana is black and there are far fewer available minority donors than white, as much as 30% fewer.

Tatyana Abrams, Looking for Bone Marrow Donor, Photo Courtesy of Teresa Herbert

None of these statistics is news to me.  I wrote a book about it, The Marrow in Me,which details my unlikely journey to becoming a bone marrow donor.  I specifically highlight the unfortunate minority donor shortage.  When Bob came in to Sportsnet tonight to talk about the Celtics and Miami Heat game I gave him a copy of my book and told him the story of how I became an anonymous donor for a 16-year-old boy who had acute myelogenous leukemia, just like Tatyana Abrams.  I couldn’t believe the look on his face.  I’m sure it was kind of like the look on my face when I read his column in the Boston Globe.  I saw my life in print, but in reverse.  I was honored and humbled to be a part of a young man’s life, if only for a short time.  I’d do it again in a second and I’d love to do it for someone like Tatyana, if only it were that easy.

Do me a favor, please come to Tatyana Abrams’ registration drive this weekend January 10 at Butler Elementary School, 1 Patrick Clark Drive, Avon, Massachusetts from noon to 4pm.  Or, if you can’t make it in person, you can register to become a potential donor by clicking here, www.bethematch.org.  A simple cheek swab will start the process.  You are a match for someone, somewhere in the world.  It’s simply a question of whether they’ll get sick and whether you’ll be reachable.  And if you’re a minority of any kind, you’re especially needed.  Let’s not leave any doubt though about who’s needed most in this situation–African Americans.  The link above will give you information on how to get a testing kit sent to you for free.

 And if you really want to know what you’re getting yourself into, if you are lucky enough to get the call and mission of a lifetime, please read my book.   The Marrow in Me will answer all your relevent questions about what being a bone marrow donor is really like.  There has never been a book written about bone marrow donation between strangers until now.   Giving your bone marrow to someone else is courageous and generous.  But you know what?  It’s like a gift is given back to you.  I’ve experienced no greater satisfaction in my life than having that chance to share a part of me with someone else. 

The golf ball that started a revolution and the man who found it, Chris Pablo

We lost a very good friend who found a most interesting golf ball that took on a life of its own years ago.  Chris Pablo died in Honolulu yesterday at the age of 59, from complications of cancer unrelated to his original leukemia diagnosis back in 1996.  I’ve blogged about Chris before and I wrote a book about his life and mine called The Marrow in Me.  I won’t pretend that everyone has been with me from the beginning, so I’ll include a little background.  

Chris is the man who found an amazing golf ball that sparked my journey to becoming a bone marrow donor and author of The Marrow in Me.

 Click here for Chris Pablo Tribute.

Chris found the golf ball in his basket years ago.  It was old, discolored and had the words beat leukemia stamped on the side.  Chris was diagnosed with leukemia just three weeks prior.  Together and with the help of plenty of others in the Hawaii media, Chris and I told the Hawaii Community about his efforts to find an unrelated bone marrow donor.   People couldn’t get enough of the golf ball hook.  Chris’s story inspired other leukemia patients like two-year-old Alana Dung to come forward.  The community responded and largely because of Chris and Alana, 30-thousand people registered as potential bone marrow donors.  Eighty-six people went to transplant, including me; for a 16-year-old boy I’d never met.  Chris found his lifesaving match from a legless man who saw the media coverage.  Alana found her match in an international registry.

Alana Dung, inspired 30,000 people to register as potential donors

Chris had been sick for the last several months, but well enough a few months back to come to Boston to visit colleges with his youngest son Zack and family.   He called me and told me we should get together.  I suspected it might be our last chance to see each other.  It was.  I was so glad to see him one last time and my young daughters were thrilled to finally meet the man Daddy’s been writing about in The Marrow in Me for all these years.  My picture of Chris and my girls sitting on the steps of the old Boston Police Station is one of my treasures and it’s included in the book with a note directly to Chris in the epilogue.  Before the book went to print I emailed him the pdf file.  “You kept me up all night and made me cry,” he said when he called the next day.

When Chris took a turn for the worse in October I rushed him one of the first printed copies of my book The Marrow in Me.  I wanted him to hold it in his hands before his time.  His wife Sandy says he did.  That just meant the world to me and so did his friendship.  Without that crazy golf ball I never would have become a bone marrow donor and certainly wouldn’t have written a book about it.

L to R, Amanda Walsh, Chris Pablo, Samantha Walsh. Boston, August 2009

Chris taught me so much about obligation, “the obligation of survivorship” as he called it.  He taught me it’s okay and effective to allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of people.  When a man tells you something like that with tears in his eyes, it’s profound and people listen.  Chris’s courage and love for his family planted the seed in me to be the type of father and husband I hope I’ve become.  I could go on and on, but you get the point.  We lost a very good man and for that I am so sad.    

Chris Pablo and Kevin Walsh, Washington, September 2008

Red Blood Cells of a sickle cell anemia patient

The news about a major treatment for sickle cell disease hit hundreds of newspapers and publications around the world Wednesday.  Now I couldn’t read them all, but of the several I did only one directly addressed the back end of the story.  There’s always a story behind the story if you know what to look for.  I’ll leave the heavy medical speak to doctors and researchers in the link to the LA Times story below.

But here’s a simple summary of the big announcement: Doctors have now found a way to use bone marrow transplants to effectively treat  more adults suffering from Sickle Cell Anemia.  It “appears” to be very good news for 70,000 Americans, almost all of them black, a few of Jewish descent.  To greatly simplify sickle cell patients’ red blood cells have a crescent shape,  like sickles.   Their jagged edges get stuck on the walls of blood vessels which can be very painful and sometimes fatal.

If you don’t know, bone marrow typing to find matches outside your family go almost exclusively along racial and ethnic lines.  Put it another way, sickle cell candidates for bone marrow transplants will need a black donor.  And there’s part of the rub.  If you’re black you have about a 30 percent less chance of finding a bone marrow match than someone who’s white.  Of the seven million people in donor registries, fewer than seven percent are African American.

If ever there was an example of the racial divide in the available health care in America, this is it.  The face of sickle cell anemia is a black one.  That’s not a judgement, that’s a fact.  But there’s good news in addressing the chronic shortage of available minority donors.  With a simple cheek swab they can register as potential donors with the help of www.bethematch.org.

The news about treating sickle cell anemia with bone marrow transplants is certainly good, but if a match can’t be found, what does it matter?  Take matters into your own hands and register as a donor today at www.bethematch.org.  You are a match for someone somewhere in the world, it’s just a matter of will that person get sick and will you be registered when the call for help comes?

About Kevin Walsh:

The Marrow in Me Book

Kevin Walsh is the author of The Marrow in Me and an anchor/reporter for Comcast Sportsnet New England and New England Cable News.  His book details his journey to becoming a bone marrow donor for a 16-year-old boy he’d never met.

LA Times Story

kevinwalstv@gmail.com