Good news about our bone marrow registration drive last Saturday. Me and a bunch of American Desis registered 75 people into the National Marrow Donor Program Registry! It takes a calling close to the heart to rise a dozen 20-something volunteers on a Saturday morning, but we did it, and I’m glad I didn’t choose the lazy option of not being involved. Michelle’s aunt Dip even came out, adding to the loved ones in Michelle’s life, pressing for a cure.
The morning was a bit of a reunion for most of us. I hadn’t seen a number of the drive’s attendees since graduating high school (Six years ago, holy wow.), and others I had only seen a couple of times throughout our separate but parallel college careers. There wasn’t much time for nostalgia, though, when every few seconds I had to test my willingness to talk to strangers. I started drawing them away from their “I’m late for class” hustle with statements that made it seem like they ought to have expected us there, “When you have ten minutes after your workout, we’ll be here til 12:30.” There was a lot of “hollering” going on, and a lot of strategic tag teaming.
At one point, I had been talking for too long and definitely said “We’re running a boner drive for…”
Un/Thankfully, that person totally ignored me and ran quickly out of range to the fancy schmancy locker rooms.
It’s an honest mistake! Anyway…
Of course, we got the obligatory bulk of questions about the pain involved in the bone marrow donation process, but unfortunately this is something one should expect. It started even before the event actually rolled around, with an old college classmate harping on the alleged pain of the procedure on our Facebook event comment wall. To those people, I had to hold myself back from retorting “Soreness after the anesthesia wears off. Five rounds of chemo. You’re up and about at a health club, gimme a fucking break.” (This natural, understandable fear of pain is also part of a larger problem, which is lack of knowledge about bone marrow donation procedures. 70% of those who donate bone marrow don’t undergo procedures that directly draw marrow from the bones. Read here for more.)
What really made me feel the worth of the day’s work, though, was when my friend – we’ll call him LD because he had a thing for Lincoln Douglas debates – made a short comment to me while we were packing up. LD is the one who drew us all together, admitting himself to hitting up all his old Asian friends from high school to find his volunteers and networkers. Getting a call from him about a volunteer event was never something I expected from him. LD’s a cocky guy, and he knows it. He’s also very smart, and is one of those types who knows exactly where his abilities will get him. Fortunately for him, it always got him to the top, including an associate position at Goldman Sachs straight out of college.
LD eventually left Goldman Sachs earlier than expected, citing that the work was just too much for him. For such a proud guy, this admission from him was the first time I had ever seen him so humble – And I’ve known the guy since kindergarten! (Maybe earlier.) Being so down to earth was not an obvious part of his personality. Because I saw him only a handful of times after high school, it was like seeing Version II of someone reformed when I learned of his career choice at his birthday last winter.
On Saturday, though, as he packed up the poster easels, he leveled with me again. I have a feeling he didn’t mean to be heard by many, but he simply said, “This is the thing I think about every day. It’s been the last thing on my mind before I go to bed for weeks.”
LD knew Michelle through their business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi, and lived with Michelle’s boyfriend Van in San Francisco – all before Michelle was diagnosed with leukemia in 2007.
“And then I think about it from Van’s perspective, like, her having leukemia, and it just gets me sad.” This, from the boy who made fun of my friend for having a crush on him in junior high.
Again, he touched on the theme of overworking in his life and said “I was pissed I wasn’t able to help last year, when they started doing stuff right when she got diagnosed.” Normally I find “what he really meant to say, but couldn’t say” statements really annoying, but in between the lines, LD was saying “I need to do this.”
Hearing all of this from LD left me a little bit speechless. All I could manage to say was “Really?” “Wow.” It’s weird growing up alongside someone and only getting glimpses of each other once in a while. It made me melancholy, but it also reminded me of why I said yes to helping LD’s friend. Though he can be a bit of a mule at times, he’s a good guy. He’s always got his friends’ backs and there’s something to be said about people who aren’t afraid to reconnect with old acquaintances for the benefit of others.
I’ve never met Michelle, but I find myself almost hoping that it’s me that could be her match, that there’s solid assurance that someone in our stack of 75 applications will be willing to prolong her life. If she was able to draw LD out of his hardened masculine shell, imagine what she would do if her cure came along.
Editor’s Note: The deadline to find Michelle’s donor is June 21st. We plan on running another registration drive in a couple of weeks at the Dave & Buster’s in Milpitas. Our goal at that drive is 100 new registrants.
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