Let me go back to the beginning sometime between 2007-spring of 2008 as I am not exactly sure when it happened. I was at work having a very normal day. On the hangar deck was a table set up for the bone marrow registry. I knew nothing of it the people there said it would take 5 minutes to swab my mouth sign a form and I am entered into the DoD marrow registry. I figured why not I have 5 minutes. I swabbed my mouth went back to work did not more investigation and went about my business.
Fast forward to April of 2011. I am at a school for 10 weeks at Patrick, AFB FL my wife is 5 1/2 months pregnant not with me in Hawaii and I get a phone call from the DoD registry saying I was a potential match for a donation. I again did not really know what that meant so this time I asked more questions. I found out came up as a potential match for a patient in need. I was asked if I would be willing to take a blood test for a further match. The CW Bill Young center Fedex'd a donation kit to my clinic and I went in for a blood draw. Again I did not think it would come up with a match.
About 7 weeks later the center called me back with more information. I was the best match for a patient with leukemia. I was told the patient is a 54 year old man with a form of Leukemia called AML. (Here is the information about it)
After discussion with Annie and although the timing of this is not good, I have decided to try and make the donation to save a life. Tomorrow 5 June 2011 I am flying from Chicago to Washington DC for a physical at the site of where the donation will take place in 12 days or so.
My plan is to keep this blog updated as I go through the process of the donation.
