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A Father’s Day Bone Marrow Donation Guide

June 12, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

Six scars dot the spot on my hips just above my butt, three on either side. Six natural tattoos that align like a constellation made flesh, remnants of fallen stars turned permanent scars.

Truth be told they’re fading, the angry aubergine blotches of 3 years ago now lavender and calm. But I still know they’re there, popping out against the pale of my sun-starved skin every time I look in the mirror, constantly reminding me of when I did battle with cancer on behalf of someone else.

The process hurt; it was a literal pain in my ass. The lead up to the marrow donation wasn’t exactly a lazy garden party either; friendly but stabby phlebotomists would harvest fresh red cells from my arms weekly, testing them for diseases and genetic markers that sounded more like Sanskrit than science. For several months, in the artificial brightness of the Johns Hopkins Weinberg Cancer Center, I’d sit and wait for my name to be called, staving off the sadness of being surrounded by people worn down to their last tatters and threads of hope.

Some wore masks; immune systems too weakened or compromised to chance a random infection. Some sported wheels or oxygen, as their bodies played host to an evil tug-o-war between cancer and chemo. All were there for one reason though, one solitary call to arms from family, friend, and fears:

To fight.

I donated bone marrow to my father not because of some righteous motivation, or some personal grab at attention, but because I saw how hard he was fighting, and wanted to fight alongside him. It only seemed right, to throw myself into the fray when the man who’d fought his whole life for me, needed reinforcement.

Unfortunately, the battle proved much for already weary bones, and my father is now feasting in the halls of Valhalla. But that’s not always the case. A family friend is celebrating her husband’s eighth (8th!) year in recovery, after undergoing a harrowing bone marrow transplant to combat his Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Even more impressive, the man who donated was a complete stranger, from the other side of the country, who physically gave part of himself to another out of purely altruistic love. I can’t help but smile when I see the pictures of Jean and Rob happy and healthy, and am proud that I tried to give my dad the same gift.

Father’s day often feels like a masquerade holiday, where we put collective masks over our patriarchs, pretend they’re stock jokes and knee socks, play a silly game of beer and barbecues and calendars of babes. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that; most dads love a little attention and at least a day to romp in their most baser joys.

But this father’s day, I urge you to think bigger than a new set of grill tools or ratcheting sockets. Consider giving a gift that transcends the material, that could mean the difference between hopelessness and an optimistic future.

How to Donate Bone Marrow

Blood cancer is one of the few types we can directly treat, and treat with a relatively high success rate. The process is a miracle of modern science: through balanced chemo they reduce the recipient’s immune system to nearly nothing, then introduce the healthy donor marrow. Over the next few months, the healthy marrow replicates and creates a new immune system inside the patient’s body, which eradicates cancer causing cells naturally. Even more incredibly, the recipient will have the same DNA as the donor!

Donating is simple.

Educate yourself – BetheMatch.org overflows with information about donating. It covers the hows, whens, whats, and ifs related to the procedure. The major difficulty for most patients in need of a marrow transplant is finding a healthy match, so the more people that sign up to donate, the higher their chances will be. Have questions about meeting the recipient, who pays for what, and other ethical quagmires? Look no further.
Know the risks – There are two ways to donate; one involves a simple blood/plasma draw, and has no real side effects. The other is a surgical procedure, like the one I described above. It is surgery, in a hospital, with gowns and beds and surgeons. You have to go under anesthesia, and you will have pain for up to a few weeks afterwards. But weigh that against giving someone a decade or more of life. Seems like a no-brainer.
Know the rewards – If you happen to be a match, you’re already a statistical anomaly, so you should feel pretty special. It’s difficult to describe the psychological power of knowing you sacrificed a bit of yourself to save another, but don’t underestimate how good it can make you feel. Want to feel like you’ve made a difference in this world, validate your existence, and discover that you really matter? Save a life.
Sign up for the registry – If you think you want to give someone this gift, you can sign up for the registry here. Remember that signing up doesn’t mean you will get picked, but it does enter your hematological information into the pool, which means you could be a match for someone, someday. Signing up is pledging that if you are a match, you will donate. Matches are somewhat rare, so make sure you’re committed before you sign up.

This Father’s day, even if you do decide to give your dad some fun gifts, remember that there are thousands of other fathers out there who want nothing more than to stick around on this planet a bit longer. If you’re healthy and care about giving gifts that really matter, I can’t think of any better gift to give.

I’m also happy to answer any donation related questions in the comments below.

Hey, Chief – An Essay for, about, and to my Father

December 16, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I wrote this essay as a way to try to stay afloat in the bitter maelstrom of emotions I’ve been drowning in since losing my father. I’m honored that Tin House would consider it high enough quality for their site.

Without further pomp:

Hey, Chief | Tin House

Dialysate

August 6, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Stress crashes through the body like waves pounding the beach after a violent storm. Undulating periods of calm and terror. Regular and rhythmic then fluttering and panicked. Eventualities become possibilities while your stomach still lurches at the realities. Systolic and diastolic ratchet an invisible band tighter and tighter around your chest. At certain desperate moments, a family’s vitals may be less stable than the patient’s.

As you hold hands and make promises and pray to everything that will listen, you become a filter: a semipermeable membrane for emotions and ideas. In the flurry of emergency you are bombarded with quick decisions, choiceless consents, more medical jargon than a marathon of House, M.D. Many words are small enough to pass through – liver, kidneys, bleeding – but many more – critical, cardiac, infection – stick to you, wet and heavy, too grave and massive to slip through the holes of your spirit. As days pass into weeks, your filter gets clogged with the fear of the unknown and frustration of no control.

The dialysis machine does the same work. Pulling and pushing the thick red life through tiny tubes like an organ suspended in the air, a medical miracle in a whirring beige box. A cylinder stained burgundy, platelets and thick toxins forming a layer on the top, doing its best to continuously clean the blood that the kidneys cannot.

The dialysate hangs on a thin metal pole behind the machine. Dozens of bags filled with transparent liquid sag in a crude circle like a morbid bouquet of balloons. It looks as innocuous as water, like the boring stuff of sinks and showers, but it is in those heavy sacks that the secret hides.

It balances blood pH, adds vital nutrients, keeps renal failure at bay, artificially.

But it does more.

It lifts sinking souls, supports spirits, keeps hope alive, organically.

The dialysate is made of natural elements like potassium and calcium and magnesium, all the things you’d get from a bunch of bananas. Nothing fancy, no synthetic man-made magic. It creates a safe, supportive environment where the the blood can purge and purify. It gives the body a chance to find its way home. Without the dialysate the filter would fail.

So when the ultrafiltration of your body and mind sticks and binds, and the weight of a loved one’s pain overwhelms you, turn to your mother. Your sister. Your wife. Whoever it is that can hold you, cradle you, keep you strong where you alone would crash. Turn to your people to help you get all that negative gunk and gripping pain out of your filter. Wash your soul in the support and love of emotional-dialysate.

And when their filters struggle, too, when the darkness of all that unfairness blocks out the light of even the strongest optimism, remember that many are more stable than one.

The man in the bed, that brilliant, stubborn, wonderful man, the one fighting the silent battle of heart rates and blood pressures and medications, needs all of his filters – emotional and physical – to be clean.

Take every little victory and wear it like positively-charged armor. Pull out the best stuff. Throw the worst away.

You’ll be left with a net-positive.

Some freshly scrubbed optimism when all other news seems dire.

A golden glint of hope.

“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
Hippocrates

Calling all Nurses

January 16, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

It’s easy being a patient.

The patient’s only job is to fight and recover, put all of their energy towards healing. Sure, it’s a miserable, pain-filled, nauseating experience, but they are allowed normally unreasonable exceptions when sick. The short tempers and illness related lethargy are tolerated, forgiven.

A lot of people affected by the same illness aren’t given the same allowances.

I often think about the nurses. Not just the ones who gently reassure me as I come out of anesthesia. Not just those who’ve helped my dad in this years-long battle. Not only the compassionate few who patrol hospitals halls in an effort to help people they don’t know.

I think about the nurses with no formal training, who don’t work in a hospital and can’t walk away from their jobs when the shift is over.

The nurses like my mother, my wife, my sister.

The people hurt by the horrible realities of cancer without experiencing any of the physical pain. The ones who selflessly exchange their own wants and desires for someone else’s; not because they have to, but because they want to. The ones who fight to make everything better using love, the best medicine they know.

I know that the fight is just as hard for them. Sometimes, maybe oftentimes, worse. I know that they are forced to see their love ones brought low, and are expected to stay strong when all they want to do is cry. I know that they don’t get breaks that they completely deserve.

To all those helping their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and husbands and wives: thank you.

Thank you for being a stalwart champion of optimism when things look bleak. Thank you for never questioning that long drive to the hospital or the even longer nights by someone’s bedside. Thank you for being an emotional surrogate and partner in struggle.

We couldn’t do it without you.

But mainly, I want to thank my nurses. Even when my mom told me “everything was crap” I could hear the determination in her voice. Even when I felt like life had hit me with a big metaphysical garbage truck, my wife was there with a perfect hug. Even when I thought the world had run out of good, my sister reminded me that there are still some great people out there doing great things.

I dedicate this post to Denise, Becca, and Tiffany. I think I can speak for my father when I say that we would have never made it this far with our bodies and minds and sanity intact without all of your support.

And to all the other nurses out there, who are as beautiful and kind and amazing as these three, thank you too. Your patients appreciate you, even if it’s not always apparent.

Three of the best nurses I know, and two really good looking patients. Go team!

An Open Letter to my Bone Marrow

January 4, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Dear weird red squiggly stuff inside my bones,

I know we don’t sit down and talk very often (or ever, come to think). I know you probably feel neglected. I know that recently, we’ve had a pretty rocky relationship: me, falling off of ladders, you, refusing to fight off infections every time I go on vacation.

But for the most part, it’s been good, right? Twenty-seven years of relatively pleasant symbiosis? I gotta ask you for something pretty huge, and I hope that our shared history is enough for you to acquiesce.

I’m gonna need you to let some doctors suck you out through my hip bones so you can go live inside my dad.

I know it sounds weird. But it’s for a really good cause! He really needs my (your) help right now, and if you do this for me (us) I promise to take better care of you. I won’t drink that last beer when I’ve already had enough. I’ll eat more oranges and kale. I’ll even go running more, if that’s what you want.

All he needs is for you to go in there and do what you’ve been doing in me. Get all up in his immune system and go all Rambo on those Leukemia cells. Give him back his energy and life. Give the whole family renewed hope.

That’s all. I ask nothing more than for you to do your job somewhere else for a little bit. Think of it as getting to travel for work. All of the airfare and accommodations are covered, you just have to show up for the meetings.

On January 18, when you’re making that trip down the hall at Hopkins, remember this letter. If you won’t do it for me, do it for him. Do it because he deserves this for being a great man and a great father. Do it because he deserves a life free from the worries and weight of cancer. Do it because I still have so much left to learn from him and I want him around to see me become a man he’s proud of.

Do it because the world needs more people like him. More people full of optimism and humor, more people willing to face a challenge with a smile and a laugh, more people who rise to a challenge and beat it back with fierce determination.

Do it because I love him.

Yours, literally,
-Oliver

Do it, because, and I quote, "“During your teenage years you were a pain in the ass.Now I get to be a pain in yours.”

Do it, because, and I quote my dad, ““During your teenage years you were a pain in the ass. Now I get to be a pain in yours.”

Full Frontal Phlebotomy

April 26, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

Sorry folks, no beer today.

Instead of putting fluids into my body, I’ve signed up to have them taken out.

I’m donating bone marrow on May 11th to treat my father’s leukemia. This means the Johns Hopkins Hospital Phlebotomy staff get to have their way with me, whenever they want. I’ve never really loved needles, but I’ve also never feared them. I can’t really be mad at the needles though, they’re just trying to do their job.

They’ve taken a lot of blood from my 5’7, 150lb frame. Twenty-two vials two months ago, sixteen vials yesterday, a pint and little bit today. If not for that “Hospital” word being on every sign on every wall, I’d think this place was run by not-so-subtle vampires.

The hospital staff seems astonished at how healthy I am. I find this a bit surprising, as I’m pretty inconsistent with taking care of my body. I hope they don’t notice the extreme level of hops and barley that I assume have permeated my blood. Or the overabundance of caffeine that, given my coffee intake, has probably mutated my red cells into hazelnut hybrids.

But what’s a little blood and marrow for my Dad? For all he’s defended me from, all he’s taught me, all he’s paid for, the least I can do is give him a few bags of my vital fluids. I just think back to all those times he helped me up off the soccer field when I was legitimately hurt, and all those times he told me to walk it off when I was being a wuss. All those times he taught me which bolts to loosen in what order, to prevent an exhaust manifold from falling onto my head. And all those times he showed me what respect, confidence, humility, and bravery were all about, through his careful words and actions.

He taught me how to be tough, how to be awesome, and most importantly how to overcome any obstacle in life, no matter how massive or threatening. It seems fitting that I’m using all of those skills he passed along to get through this donation process.

But don’t misunderstand. The donation may be stressful and painful, but I’m excited to do it. Giving him my marrow (that really isn’t doing anything else right now) is a tiny gift, compared to the gifts he has given me.

Oliver 1 : Dad 4,322,012.

Against hospital rules, I took some pictures. Oops:

Stage 1: Empty

I have no idea what each of these are for. I asked, but my needle-bearer could only tell me what additives were inside. The tests being done on them remain a total mystery.

Stage 2: Extraction

These pictures suck because I was being all clandestine, trying to snap them with my phone when people weren’t looking. This needle is piffling compared to the 16 gauge sucker I had rammed into my veins this morning.

Stage 3: Filled

That’s a lot of blood. I feel a bit woozy. I’m going to go lay down for a while.