Guilt
24
April
I’ve been haunted with pangs of guilt lately and need to get something off my chest. I have a client who has an adult son in his 30’s who has leukemia. His son needs a bone marrow transplant. From what our client tells me, they’ve run his son’s biological data against all of the registered bone marrow donors (some three million), and none of them are a match. He’s receiving chemo, but they don’t know how many rounds of chemo a person can have, and if it that answer was infinitely large, the chemo won’t cure him. Only a bone marrow transplant has a shot at chasing this disease from his body.
Like any good father would, during any contact he has with people outside his family, he’s telling them about his son’s situation and not quite asking, but implying that he’d really like people to sign up for the registry.
I haven’t done it, and not sure I will. After I got off the phone with him telling me about his son’s dire situation, I Googled bone marrow transplants to see what I might be in for. Sounds like it may include general anesthetic and for someone like me who earns their living in a rather physical job, I may not be able to work for a few weeks.
I’m kinda feeling like a sissy for not jumping in and signing up, but at the same time, we’re not millionaires. If I’m not working for three weeks, that’s three weeks that we’re drawing from savings. And then the risk (albeit slight) of having complications from the procedure or the general anesthetic.
What would you do if you were in my shoes?
1. nutmeg | April 25th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Do it anyway. It will come back to you, I promise. That’s how to raise your children too. If not, create a website to get people to sign up for the registry. You can knock that out in an evening and I’ll start the ball rolling with you on my site. I’ll even get registered!
2. Jack | April 25th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I’m conflicted about it (as I was before - no real surprise), but I like your ideas. I like the idea of setting up a site to get others on the registry, and you may even talk me into signing up myself - but I may have to place strings on my registration, in that if asked to donate during a time other than the winter, and it does knock me off of work for a few weeks, it really would cut into my ability to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. As I read my previous sentence back to myself it sounds selfish. But is it? I guess a substantial part of me is thinking not.
But maybe I could dip my toes in first, donating my blood (never done that before, either), and then going on the registry for the lesser of the two procedures, where they pull blood out of one arm, remove the goodies, then put it back into the other arm (I don’t know if that’s an option, but I’m feeling like I want it to be).
As for you signing up - That’s unbelievably generous of you - but I think I’m even more conflicted about that. The guilt would be off the charts if you signed up, matched a need, and then had something go askew. Ugh. Don’t even want to think about it.
Whew. Okay, I’m going to take a day or two to process this. But I think there can be a path here to do some good on a very local level and maybe something larger, too. Thank you for offering to help out. Your blog carries far more weight than mine, so if I launch something your help will be both appreciated and needed to get the thing off the ground.
3. nutmeg | April 26th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I should preface my answer with:
1. We recently lost a close friend from leukemia.
2. I have always wanted to be a bone marrow donor.
3. I’m not thinking like a primary breadwinner.
4. I’m a bleeding heart liberal.
5. I have a strong faith and a WTF attitude toward life.
I also have some connections to a couple of much bigger bloggers who I think would help, if you go that route. I totally respect a man who puts his family first. I know Nathan would.