Lots of bad news with a glimpse of good

Here is a quick and sweet update and I will follow through with more along this long journey that I have been placed on.

A few weeks ago I received a call from my doctor where he shared bad news about my biopsy I had over christmas break. From the biopsy it looked to him that the medicine was no longer working as affectively as before. So I quickly hoped on a flight back to Houston and had a crazy two weeks of appointments where the end result was that I will be going through a full stem cell transplant, more (lots more) on that later.

The major first step for a stem cell transplant is to find a match. My brother was typed and it took about two weeks to receive the news that he is only a HALF match. That means that he does not match completely and that he is on deck in case they do not find any full matches through the registry.  This hit hard, we were all holding our breath that Harry would be a match. It really stinks that he is not a full match but I am glad to know that I have him as a half match if it has to come to that.

The little glimpse of good news is that they did a quick - i mean quick - preliminary search through all of their databases and found 14 preliminary matches!!! - WOOOHOOO I feel like 14 is a LOT and that is a major thanks to every person who has every entered their name and given a swab of their mouth to the national registry!

I know a lot of you have asked where you can go to see if you are a match and there are a bunch the answer is go to any of them as they all lead to the same major database. The one that I have done a lot of website browsing and information gathering on is bethematch.com .

I urge all those that would be willing not only help me but also help anyone who may need bone marrow one day to go through the site and register. Maybe you will help save my life or maybe you will help save a strangers life who needs it just as much as I do.