Gift of Life Swab and Slobber

We’ve had a beautiful weekend!  We took Rosie to the Grounds for Sculpture Friday afternoon, she and her mother helped us run a swab station yesterday for Gift of Life.  Then we drove into Philadelphia with Kerry, Theresa and Rosie to meet Kim for a Father’s Day Eve dinner.  Lovely weather!  Lovely company!

The Gift of Life swab station was at the Hamilton YMCA training day (aka Pep Rally) for 1200 camp counselors.  Jeff’s job was to address the crowd and encourage them to join the bone marrow registry.  This he needed to accomplish with only two minutes at the microphone.  That didn’t leave a lot of time for details of his story so he whittled his speech down to essentials and added a bit of competition, “Freehold is way ahead.  And Lower Bucks, you’re in my neighborhood so I want to see you at our table!”  At that point, we’d only collected DNA from eight potential donors – all from Freehold - so he was particularly clever to turn that into a game. 

We had a steady stream of people swab all morning.  Our collection team included Jeff, Theresa and Rosie (good advertisement for why Jeff is glad to be alive), Stem Cell Donor Frank, Nick Hudson from Gift of Life and me.  Often Jeff was out of sight somewhere and I eventually realized that he was carrying Rosie around the grounds, talking up Gift of Life whenever he saw that we were ready for more “customers.”

Some of the young people were embarrassed when the swabbing action caused them to slobber.  Others asked, “Is it okay if I just ate a Jolly Rancher?”  or “…had gum?”  Jeff teased the gum-chewer, “Just stick the gum in there!” but I don’t think she did.  Some people needed to tell their stories, their reasons for their willingness to join the registry: “my cousin,” “my brother,” “my niece.”  One man asked Jeff, “Can I talk to you?  I just lost my dad to AML.”  Some seemed nervous, others more committed.  We loved them all. 

Stem Cell Donor Frank’s story is a particularly good one, well-known among Gift of Life staff members.  When Nick realized who Frank was, he said, “Oh, you’re that guy!”  Frank donated at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital the day after Hurricane Sandy in a lab opened just for him – which was running on generator power.  He had to use a back door - and maybe even a secret handshake (not really).  I told Frank how nerve-wracking donation day was for us, when Jeff was without marrow, very sick and waiting for his life-saving juice.  The family of Frank’s recipient had the added concern of a hurricane and power outages.  What a nail-biter!  Sadly, Frank will never meet his recipient.  Still, he is hopeful that he will be someone’s match again.  Awesome guy!

Nicole once told us about the special blanket Gift of Life donors are given on their donation day.  The GOL staff member who sits with them during the donation brings a blanket that has been signed by each of the Gift of Life staff members, thanking them for their donation.  It was nice to hear Frank and Nick, who is also a donor, talk about their blankets with the same reverence Nicole has for hers.  Gift of Life really knows how to take care of people.   

Prayers, please, that all those who swabbed yesterday feel our gratitude and  that among the swab kits now on their way to the lab, the identity of a hero may be made known.