I just returned from a whirlwind trip that included two speaking engagements in 12 hours, 350 miles miles apart.  The first was to Rotarians in Boxborough, Massachusetts on Friday night.  As soon as I finished I got in the car and drove seven hours through the night to speak Saturday morning to bone marrow transplant survivors and their families at Temple University in Philadelphia.  I shared with them my story of being a bone marrow donor and writing a book about it, The Marrow in Me.

Receiving Paul Harris Fellow Award in Boxborough, MA

The trip was physically exhausting, but I got such a lift out of telling and hearing stories of hope from others.  Villanova Football Coach Andy Talley told the story of his star football player, Matt Szcur, who turned up as a bone marrow match for a one year girl he’d never met.

Matt Szczur, Donor for Infant Girl

Joy Janice, searching for donor

 I had been riding the trip’s high for a couple of days until I got an email yesterday that made my heart sink.  The email introduced me and dozens of others on a long email trail to Joy Janice of suburban Philadelphia.  Joy had breast cancer a couple of years ago and beat it with the usual treatments which included chemotherapy.  Sadly she has cancer again.  It’s not breast cancer, it’s leukemia; the unfortunate complication from the chemo. 

Mitch and Joy

Joy doesn’t have brothers and sisters, so she’s searching for a matching stem cell donor.  So far no luck in the registries.  Be a hero, register as a potential donor today.  Believe me, there’s no greater joy than receiving the phone call that you’ve turned up as the chosen match to join someone on what could be a lifesaving journey.  Matt Szczur I’m sure would tell you the same.    Click on the link for the Be The Match website, http://join.marrow.org.  After completing the qualifying questions(toward the end of the process), enter JJ1605 into the field labeled “Promo Code”.

A cheek swabbing donor kit will be mailed to you.  I like to say everyone is a match for someone somewhere in the world.  It’s just a question of whether that person will get sick, and whether you’ll be in a registry.  Swab away.  It would mean a lot to me, and I know it would mean the world to Joy and those who care about her.

Shannon DiGuisseppe

This week has been hard on my heart.  While playing hockey I semi-impaled myself on the butt end of a stick.  There’s a welt on my chest directly over my heart.  It still hurts when I breathe deeply.  But don’t worry about me.  I have bigger concerns.

Earlier this week I learned the four-year-old daughter and niece of close family friends had a brain tumor that required surgery.   The good news is the mass removed from Shannon DiGuisseppe’s brain was benign.  The bad news is her optic nerve was badly damaged and her eyesight is gone.  When Shannon’s Aunt Mary Beth Carroll wrote in an email, ”Shannon keeps saying turn the lights back on,” it broke my heart. 

There’s just something about the written word looking back at you.

Shannon is the daughter of Trisha and Steve DiGuisseppe and one of 19 grandchildren in the extended DiGuisseppe/Reilly Family.  Her family is praying for a miracle.  There’s strength in numbers and I’m joining them.

19-year-old Cory Kadlik, Perkins School of the Blind

Pardon the oxymoron, but with what’s again becoming something of a predictable coincidence in my universe, my assignment for the day involved interviewing a young man with a deep connection to an issue weighing heavily on my heart and mind.  19-year-old Cory Kadlik of Medway, Massachusetts is a student at Perkins School of the Blind in Watertown.  Cory is getting ready for a fencing competition.  He’s wrestled and played other sports too.

Touch is probably the most important way he finds his way around in fencing and everything else he does. He also “sees” with his ears and feels the vibrations of movement around him.   It’s no big deal to him, but it is to me.

Cory doesn’t know this, but spending time with him today made me feel a lot better about the situation involving Shannon.  I know Shannon’s parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and the rest of us want the full restoration of her vision, despite the odds against it.  If it doesn’t happen though, my time with Cory made me see a much brighter future for Shannon and her family than the one I envisioned when I got that email yesterday.

I believe Shannon will make believers of us all; either through a miracle, or by demonstrating the  resiliencey of the human spirit, just like Cory does gracefully each day.  I, for one, can’t wait to see it happen.  It’ll give our collective hearts a lift; and it just might lead us to do things in our own lives that inspire people around us in ways we never imagined.

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

Below in blue highlighted text, ESPN’s Rick Reilly writes about Chris Pablo, a key character in my book The Marrow in Me.

Why I love my job

Someone once asked me, “Why write about sports?” Here’s the answer

By Rick Reilly
ESPN The Magazine
Archive

Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images Tom Brady is one of the many reasons Rick Reilly loves covering sports.

 This column appears in the December 14 issue of ESPN The Magazine, which is the ESPN 100 year-in-review issue.

 When I was a college sophomore and just starting to write for the Boulder sports section, my journalism professor edged me aside, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re better than sports.”

 Lurching into my fifth decade in this business, I still think she’s wrong. I will never be better than sports. This is why:  Sports is real. It can’t be faked. If you’re Henry Fonda’s son and you want to act, you get to act. If you’re Chelsea Clinton and want to govern, you get to govern. But just because you’re Nolan Ryan’s son doesn’t mean you get to pitch in the Show. Money, family, looks mean diddly in sports. If Tom Brady suddenly can’t throw the 30-yard out, he’s benched, dimple or no dimple.

 Sports is Oprah for guys. I knew a Boston dad and son who hadn’t spoken in five years. Some disagreement that just grew too big to see around. But when the Red Sox won it all in 2004, the son came home. They hugged and cried and laughed, and if you think it was about baseball, you don’t know men.

Sports fans can be buried in a coffin that is painted in their favorite team’s colors and logo. Anybody buried in a Chicago Symphony Orchestra coffin lately?

 Sports has mercy. The big and strong take care of the small and weak. In an Illinois prep football game this year, a Downers Grove South kick returner broke into the open at the 40 and was gone. Except, when he got to the 1-yard line, he stopped and went out of bounds. He and his teammates wanted to get an autistic teammate the only touchdown of his life. He got it on the second play. Ever see that on Wall Street?

 Sports is woven deeper into American life than you know. You may change religion or politics, but not teams. “I was raised a Packers fan and taught my kids the same,” writes a mom in Milwaukee. “Everyone comes to my house for games. My oldest son is battling addiction, and he comes too. We shout and curse and eat green and gold food. Whatever the joy or drama in our lives, we live and die with the Packers together.”

  Sports has no gray areas. It’s black or white, win or lose, hero or goat. Nobody has to form a committee to figure it out. Not true in dance or art. Who was better, head to head, Matisse or Monet? If it were sports, we’d know. (Matisse, 13-8.)

Sports is unscripted. President Obama just went to China, a trip choreographed from touchdown to takeoff. He knew exactly where he’d sit and eat and what he’d say. Knew it before he left. And yet, in the PGA Championship this year, a nobody named Y.E. Yang came from behind to beat the god named Tiger Woods. No wonder Obama doesn’t watch Headline News. He watches SportsCenter.

 College football teams fill 100,000-seat stadiums. Seen the history department do that?

 Sports has honor. In a Texas girls high school volleyball playoff this season, one of the East Texas Christian Academy girls suffered a head injury and was taken away on a stretcher. The East Texas girls were too upset to continue and forfeited. But their opponents — Summit Christian — refused. They insisted on rescheduling. They said they couldn’t win that way. And yet last year in Alaska, Senator Ted Stevens (R) ran for reelection despite seven felony convictions.

 Sports has the best words, and every CEO steals them. It’s a slam dunk. It’s a grand slam. It’s a complete whiff. And yet, in 32 years, I have never heard an athlete say, “That was just a total filibuster out there!”

 If sportswriters are so trivial, why did Frank Sinatra want to be one? Hell, the first Heisman winner, Jay Berwanger, turned his nose up at being the NFL’s No. 1 draft pick in 1936 to write for the Chicago Daily News. Berwanger said, “It paid better.”

 Sports has a heart the size of a knuckleball mitt. A man in Oahu named Chris Pablo once found a golf ball stamped with the words BEAT LEUKEMIA. Weird, since he’d just learned he had leukemia. Pablo decided he hadn’t found the ball, the ball had found him. His story got out and, next thing you know, hundreds of people volunteered for bone marrow donation. Now there are purposely lost balls on courses all over the country that say BEAT LEUKEMIA. Golfers find them and feel obligated to help. Sometimes they don’t just save $3 — they save a life.

Lastly — and most important — sports is the place where beer tastes best.

 So here’s to you, professor. I’m glad to know I’m not better than sports. But you did show me I’m better than one thing: advice from professors.

 Love the column, hate the column, got a better idea? Go here.
Want more Life of Reilly? Then check out the archive.
Be sure to check out Rick’s latest project, “Go Fish.”

Julia Taibl and Kevin Walsh on Trendy Teen TV's One on One

http://www.youtube.com/user/YoungBroadcastersUSA

*click above link to see Trendy Teen TV interview

I went to do an interview with Trendy Teen TV and I found a babysitter.  Bonus!  Okay that’s just a funny headline but it’s true.  I met a lovely young broadcaster named Julia  Taibl who interviewed me on her program Trendy Teen TV which is a part of Young Broadcasters of America in Natick, Massachusetts.

Julia is a smart cookie.  I gave her a copy of my book, The Marrow in Me,  just a couple of days ago.  When I walked into the studio she had her copy all marked up with pink sticky notes.  Let me let you in on a little secret in the broadcast world, when you see an author on a TV talk show, 90% of the time the host hasn’t read the book.  He or she has skimmed it at best.  They’re usually just going off what they read on the inside flap and the author’s press release.  Not with Julia and TTT.  She read the whole book in like two days.  That’s good stuff.  No that’s great stuff.   Something else.  Julia didn’t rely on her notes.  She trusted she knew her material and just ran with the conversation.   That’s maturity beyond her years. 

Julia is a performer at heart which is a big reason why she’s good at what she does.  She looks like she’s having fun which of course is the concept.  My two girls are going to love her when she comes over to give Mommy and me a chance to make our rounds at holiday parties.  Something tells me there will be plenty of reading, singing and dancing in our house when Julia comes over.  That too, of course is the concept.

Mrs. Taibl, Julia Taibl and Kevin Walsh

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.

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.

Play video

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.

Jim Braude, Host of Broadside with Jim Braude

One of the greatest athletes of all time announced he’s been battling cancer for some time.   Technically Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s in remission for chronic myeloid leukemia, cancer of the blood and bone marrow.   He’s 62-years-old and has a good chance to beat it with advances in oral medicine.

I have to admit I couldn’t stand the man when I was a boy.  Most of it had to do with the fact that his Lakers beat up on my hometown 76ers.  I didn’t like his goggles and that unstoppable sky hook either.  But I’ve come to admire the man.  I am now a fan of Kareem because of what he represents–a fighting spirit and a goal to educate people about leukemia.

Who knew a 7′2″ black man and a 5′9″ white tv sportscaster had some much in common?   Why bring up race?  Because it matters in bone marrow typing and transplants.  Hopefully Kareem won’t have to get to that point, but if he did his best bet of  finding a matching bone marrow donor would be in the black community.  I know what I’m talking about.  I’ve been a bone marrow donor, researched the issue extensively, and wrote a book about it.  Unlike blood, bone marrow typing falls almost exclusively along racial and ethnic lines.

Author Kevin Walsh after having bone marrow harvested from his bones. A 16-year-old boy received Kevin's marrow in a transplant.

When one is sick with any of 75 disorders that can be treated with bone marrow transplant–leukemias being among the biggest–doctors first look within the patient’s family.  But even then there’s only about a 25-percent chance they’ll find a match from a family member.  They’ll then turn to the outside world of international bone marrow registries.  For a person of color the chance of finding an unrelated match is about 20-30 percent less than it is for someone who’s white.

Cancer doesn’t discriminate, but the numbers don’t lie.  It’s a tougher road for minorities because they’re largely underrepresented on donor rolls.  Awareness would certainly help and there’s no better time than now to put the word out about the need for more people, especially blacks, latinos and asians to take the initial steps to register as a potential bone marrow donor.  November is National Bone Marrow Donor Awareness Month.  I like to say everyone is a match for someone somewhere.  It’s just a question of whether they’ll get sick, and will you be ready to help?

To join the registry visit the National Marrow Donor Program’s Be the Match registry.