RIP, Michelle Maykin.
27 Jul
Michelle Maykin of Project Michelle passed away on Saturday, July 25th. She left much to be respected and admired. Having gone through remissions and relapses, she was a real genuine icon for organ and tissue donation, particularly with the Asian American community.
Check out photos of a card I received from AADP a few weeks ago. I can’t believe 4 patients have already received stem cell transplants because of our Project Michelle efforts. Note, that these stats are just from AADP. I bet other Project Michelle drives outside of the SF Bay Area have also had success. I would love to get a total count of the donors that registered at a Project Michelle drive that have donated their stem cells to save someone else’s life (I’m an auditor….we like numbers). I am so proud of all of the Project Michelle volunteers. Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I’m doing pretty good (mentally and physically) if I don’t say so myself. My days are filled drinking all sorts of concoctions, doing hours of qi gong and praying. This is a full time job, but I think it’s good to keep myself busy. While I do have my moments of sadness, overall I feel calm and at peace.
-Michelle Maykin, “A Silver Lining,” July 8, 2009
What’s really crazy, and actually angers me for reasons I can’t quite articulate, is that on July 8th I noticed that the search term “michelle maykin died” led two people to my blog. It made me really sad just to read those words. I scrambled to find anything I could on the Internet about her well-being. When things seemed to check out okay with her survival, I consciously put it in the back of my mind. Who wants to think about Death when someone was, at one point, so close to it? I’m superstitious, and to consider the possibility would have put Death and Michelle in the same sentence, would have connected them, would have been equivalent to wishing her ill will. I would not do that. After that, the search term disappeared from my analytics.
Michelle married the love of her life, Van–someone described to me as a real stand-up guy–and that’s where I make myself stop thinking about her departure.
I never met this woman and I’m crying.
You can still register your marrow sample for free. Directions are here.
Tags: michelle maykin, leukemia, project michelle, bone marrow, bone marrow registration
I wish I didn’t know what you meant, but here I sit, bawling… again.
I tell myself that if she was upbeat about the situation, how dare I NOT look for the positive and put all this anguish behind me?
There are at least 4 people getting better because Michelle went through this. If she can celebrate that, then why are WE having such a hard time with that?
Sounds like it is time to sponsor another child. This time in Michelle’s name.