The other day, I noticed a sign in the lobby of the building that I work in. It said Help Save Giovanni. This intrigued me. I recognized the little boy's face from newspapers and TV news reports but also remember that it was a while ago that I had seen it. What it was was a poster for a Bone Marrow Registry drive, to be held in the cafe of the building that I work in. Beautiful I thought - I will make it a point to go after work and sign up. Hopefully there won't be too long of a line and maybe I can even get Mary to sign up. So Wednesday came and in I went. Imagine my surprise when the man that greeted me was so excited to see someone. SO - I asked, "Have you had a lot of people today?" and his response almost knocked me to the floor - "You are the 13th person today - 13th?????? It was 5:00 p.m. - they had been there since 1:30 p.m., 3.5 hours, how could this be??????? There are hundreds of people that work in my building, why was I only the 13th person?? This didn't seem right. So of course I went out and got Mary - she was very willing as I assumed she would be, but this got me to thinking - why??? Why wouldn't you register? What were people afraid of? Were they afraid that it was going to hurt? Were they concerned that their DNA would be stored somewhere? I could not and still can not imagine not registering. You could save a life. Maybe not someone you know but someone's son, or daughter or mother or father, another human being that is cherished and loved and valued but someone somewhere. Below are a couple of reasons that this is near and dear. So what can you do you ask???? You can register! It is easy, quick, and painless and free. Please go to this web site and ask for a kit. They will send it to you and you follow the directions and send it back. 5 minutes that is all it takes - just 5 minutes. So go there now - and register - www.savegiovanni.org. Believe me you will feel better after you do.
These are the couple of reasons that this is important to me: Quite a few years ago, when my kids were about 2, the husband of Jared's godmother, a man my own age, passed away from leukemia because the bone marrow that he received was not a perfect match. Not that long ago, my uncle (father's brother) also passed away from non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, another disease that requires a bone marrow transplant.