Last Fall my friend Lara talked often to me about how a very close friend of her family was battling cancer. She had known the girl’s family since they grew up in Palestine. Over a period of weeks Lara described how charismatic, lovely, kind and promising this young girl was. She had already been through many treatments in California where she was in school and where her parents had come to live. She and her parents then came to Washington to be part of an experimental treatment program at NIH. Lara and her family visited her regularly at NIH. Ultimately, the doctors recommended a new procedure involving a bone marrow transplant.
The only problem was how difficult it is to quickly find a matching bone marrow donor. 70% of the people who need stem cell or bone marrow transplants do not have a compatible donor in their family and must look in bone marrow registries for an unrelated donor. Lara and her family took it upon themselves to set up blood marrow registration campaigns in Virginia, California and Palestine. Over those several weeks, I saw how Lara became increasingly weary – as she, her family and others worked tirelessly with NIH to set up events to test and register 100′s of potential marrow donors around the world. Everyone came together to do this, knowing that it was likely that a donor might not be found for their friend – but confident that there would now be 100′s more options for future patients.
This past Saturday it was Burke’s turn to help another young woman. The Burke gym was home to a bone marrow donor drive for Team Lindsay. Lindsay, a Duke graduate, contracted Lymphoma and needs a stem cell transplant. Her DC friends pulled together drives in Long Island, NYC, Indiana, Ohio and Burke. Hundreds of Burke and non-Burke people flowed through the gym to sign up and get their cheeks swabbed. It was a simple, yet powerful way to be part of the larger community of mankind. We wish all the best to Lindsay and her wonderful friends. If you want to see how you can be part of the bone marrow registry, click here.
Team Lindsay Burke Registration
Team Lindsay Information Guys
