Lea McNamara getting the blood drawing equipment ready

Lea McNamara getting the blood drawing equipment ready

Here we go again.  My life is a little crazy right now but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  I’m sitting next to Lea McNamara in a Blood Mobile and she’s about to stick a needle in my arm.  We’re chatting and we talk about my fear of needles.  “You’re afraid of needles?” she asks.

“Yes but not so afraid I won’t donate blood.  Plus I’ve donated bone marrow so I’ve dealt with worse.”

So while we’re having the good chat I bring up my book The Marrow in Me and Lea gets a little emotional.  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“My dad has leukemia,” she said.

My heart lifted into my throat.  Once again someone with a major blood cancer connection plopped down right in front of me, or vice versa.   I don’t even know if I should even bother to ask why anymore.  These strange coincidences are actually becoming almost commonplace.   See the story I posted below about Eneias and Me and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The good news is this, Lea’s dad is in remission.  And my encounter with his daughter I believe serves a purpose bigger than a blood donation.  But blood donation is important too.  I pumped out at bag of type-o positive blood and chased it with two mini cans of grape/cranberry juice and a bag of pretzels feeling charged up about the effort.

Kevin and Lea after blood donation

Lea later charged out of the bus in an effort to hook up with her buddies for a soccer game.  It’s my guess she’ll probably share her book boy encounter with her friends and maybe someone will log on and check out the posting.  If you’re one of Lea’s guy or gal pals, give her a high five for me.  She’s doing great work and you’re lucky to have her as a friend.  But then again you probably know that.  Share a comment below.

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

Watch video clip of Will Parr Interview, Courtesy of NECN

I promised to follow up and now I am.  I played a couple of holes yesterday with my new pal Will Parr.  I can call him a pal because after a round of golf, everyone’s my friend.  So Will is no different than every other golfer I’ve ever played with it.  Oh wait a minute, yes he is.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Will is missing most of his right leg due to Aggressive Fibromatosis/Desmoid Tumors.  To watch him swing in balance and to tee a ball up is really nothing short of Cirque de Soleil coordination.  “Really I don’t think about balance all that much.  It sort of comes naturally,” he told me as ventured down the fairways of Olde Salem Greens GC.  Will alternated between driving a single person golf cart and later carrying his own bag while balancing on crutches as we finished up on nine.

Will drives it close to 200 yards and on our day he had two clutch up and downs that showed some moxie.  But what I really like is his passion for the game, “What does golf do for me?  It gives me something to look forward to.  It’s nice to know that there’s something waiting for me at the end of the day.  It’s a release.”

“We’re so proud of him and the positive attitude he has about everything,” his dad Mike tells me.

“Will is such a positive influence on our team and the other teams,” says Salem High School Golf Coach Tom Doyle.  “He’s such a nice young man.  It’s people like Will that keep me in coaching.”

In addition to golf, Will told me he has a taste for politics.   My kind of guy again. 

Golf has given my everything I have in my life.  There really is nothing important in my life that doesn’t have some sort of golf connection.  I’ve talked with Tiger, chatted up Arnold Palmer and blocked Jack Nicklaus’ path on a bridge years ago as a kid.  Those are memories I’ll have forever and they mean the world to me.  But I’ll tell you something else, my late afternoon round of golf with Will Parr and Tom Doyle was right up there.  It was so cool.  And keep your eye on this Parr kid.  I think he’s going to make us even more proud in the years to come.