Broadside with Jim Braude

Meredith Broussard, Author

I got an email from a long lost writing friend of mine Meredith Broussard. Mere is something else. She’s the editor of The Encyclopedia of Failed Exes and The Dictionary of Failed Relationships, which despite the negative connotations are not downers but rather witty reads. Meredith shared with me an email about a gal pal she has in Southern California who’s struggling to find a bone marrow donor for her pre-leukemic condition.

Krissy Kobata with Alex Band Rocker Dude

So I tracked down Krissy who’s a cute 27-year-old bi-racial gal pal in Southern California to find out what’s up. Here’s the deal, Krissy has been struggling to find a matching unrelated bone marrow donor for several months. Hers is the face of a rather familiar struggle, people of mixed race looking for someone with the same racial medley as them. Krissy’s dad is Japanese and her mom is white with roots in Scandanvia and Scotland. Matches outside your racial orbit are rare but they’ve happened. I wrote about one in my book The Marrow in Me. Renee Adaniya, of Japanese Okinawan descent, turned up as a perfect match for a white military man named Butch “Duel” Lane in Tennessee. Four years after covering the story of Renee on Hawaii TV, Renee called me with word that I was a bone marrow match for a 16-year-old boy with leukemia. That’s me and Renee below.

Renee Adaniya and Kevin cropped I love to look for good stories because it’s what I do. But Krissy’s story, my personal journey to becoming a bone marrow donor and the others I wrote about in The Marrow in Me all found me, allowing me to be who I am.

I’d like for Krissy’s current situation to be different and I’m not just going to wish for it, I’m going to work on it. I’m starting tonight on the tube. I’m going on a program called Broadside with Jim Braude on New England Cable News. I’m going to tell Jim and the 3.7 million households NECN reaches about Krissy and how they can register as potential bone marrow donors. Folks who are Asian and ”Hapa” like Krissy are STRONGLY encouraged to register, but everyone else can too. Remember what happened to Renee and Butch? Who’s to say it couldn’t happen again?

To get yourself into the registry for FREE–use the link: join.bethematch.org/swab4krissy, answer a short list of questions and be sure to use swab4krissy as the promotional code so you’re not charged for the marrow typing fee. Marrow typing typically runs about 100 bucks. But something else, if you have the dough make a donation while you’re there. Do the same thing at www.a3mhope.org which is the funding source behind Krissy and other Asians seeking a match through The National Marrow Donor Program. The funding source for this is good only through the end of the year. It’s another way to give.

Forward this link along to everyone you know. I have a good feeling things are going to work out for Krissy. It’s just a gut thing, something I feel in my bones. Krissy’s story is very much like the other stories I share in The Marrow in Me. They just kind of fell in my lap. And when that happens, good things usually follow. I’m just the messenger.

Kevin with Latoyia Edwards, NECN promoting The Marrow in Me

Click on video link below to see Broadside with Jim Braude on NECN. Discussion of The Marrow in Me, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Krissy Kobata.

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Kareem Picture I’m not the only person who thinks Kareem Abdul-Jabbar missed a golden opportunity to speak up about the inequality of available medical treatment for people of color in a cause that hits very close to home for him. Jim Braude, of Broadside with Jim Braude wants me to come on his program to talk about it.

Here’s the fuss and you heard it here first. Last week Kareem announced he’s fighting leukemia and is in remission. He went on CNN and talked with the LA Times. Neither brought up the fact that minorities are vastly underrepresented on bone marrow donor rolls. For the medically challenge, bone marrow matching and transplant to cure as many as 75 diseases goes almost exclusively along racial and ethnic lines.

Kareem probably didn’t know about the shortage of minority donors. He doesn’t need a donor, at least not now; and hopefully he won’t ever have to. But if he did he’d probably be facing what thousands of others in the minority community are facing, a 20-30 percent less chance of finding a donor than someone who’s white.

My issue with the omission is this: if you’re going to make yourself the face of a cause like leukemia, you need to know what it is you’re talking about. Fully. I’ll let you know what else Kareem missed and I’m sure my pal Braude will have an opinion too. Join us Thursday night at 6pm for Broadside with Jim Braude on NECN.