CaliKat
Gemini
Kool Kat
  
Cali Delta
Posts: 1,958
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Post Rank: 33
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Posted: Dec. 19 2010,11:17 am |
Post # 1 |
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My Christmas wish  to Santa this year is simple and complicated at the same time:  a bone marrow transplant for a little girl named Brooke.
Brooke is a 7 year old from the Boston area who is battling leukemia.  Her Auntie Lisa is a close friend of one of my good friends, Jen, who lives in Rhode Island.  Jen shared Brooke’s story with  me, knowing that  I also have a 7 year old Brooke, my niece (the one we call DeeDee).  The two Brookes are a lot alike, and we’ve had our own health scares with our Brooke, so Boston Brooke’s story was like a sucker punch to the gut.  It just hit too close to home.
Unfortunately, Brooke’s sister  is not  a  bone marrow match, and so far there hasn’t been a match in the national registry.  Yesterday (Saturday) they held a bone marrow donor drive in the greater Boston area.  I haven’t gotten an update but I hope the turnout was great.  Tomorrow Brooke starts another round of high dose chemo in the hopes that a match will come from this drive and that way she’ll be ready to go for the transplant as soon as possible.  So far she has bounced back from each round with good numbers, so let’s hope the same holds true for this round.  Of course she is heartbroken that she will be in the hospital over Christmas, especially since she’ll be getting  chemo.  I know Boston Children's Hospital will make it as fun as possible, but  she still has to deal with the fact that she’ll have poison running through her body to kill the other poison in her body.  Pretty tough on anyone at anytime, but especially for a 7 year old at Christmas.
So the wish is simple:  find a match.  But then it gets complicated.  In spite of the millions of people on the donor registry, matches are still hard to come by.  We need more people to join.  We need everyone who is able to be a possible donor to join.  Getting on the registry is simple…it takes a cheek swab and some paperwork.  If you are chosen as a donor, there is no cost to you, the cost is picked up by the recipient and other organizations.  It’s not a painless procedure, but it’s not the worst thing you could endure either…and the reward is spectacular:  the gift of life.
I guess my wish is actually twofold.  I hope you’ll join me in saying a prayer that Santa will bring Boston Brooke a donor match for Christmas.  And I hope you and your families will take the step to join the donor registry.  Some of you will remember that over 3 years ago the life of one of my bestest friends was saved by a  bone marrow transplant.  I thank that stranger every day for  saving  Lynn’s life.
Sorry for being so long winded…but this is something that is very important to me.  I’m doing everything in my power to get the word out.  I’ll keep you posted on  Brooke’s progress. I've got a little package going out to her tomorrow, hopefully it will get there by Christmas. And I'm on the hunt for the stuffed Pac Man on a string that I got for my friend Lynn to hang from her IV pole, it really helped her to visualize the chemo eating the cancer cells.
Be The One. Â Be The Match. Â Save A Life!
Be The Match
Thanks guys...love and hugs to all.  Â  Â 
"This is for all the friends I've known, this is for all the ones who've never left me alone. This is for all the ones I've lost along the way...thanks for being a part of today."
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