Uneasy Rhetoric

I’m not usually one to get caught up in the various crises and dramas that the internet and television news foist upon us, but something about Trevor Kott’s story caught me off guard. It made me think, hard, about the little things I have, or more likely have not, been doing that could make someone else’s life a lot better.

By way of background, Trevor was diagnosed with leukemia the day after he was born. He wasn’t given much time, but managed to fight for over six months. A bone barrow transplant could have made all the difference, but there weren’t any matches in the national registry of marrow donors. Despite hundreds, if not thousands, of people getting themselves “swabbed” and onto the registry (it’s just a cheek swab because it’s a genetic test), no match was found. Trevor passed away this morning.

The story touched me because my own son is only a few days older than Trevor and the picture they use on the website reminded me of one of my favorite photographs of my son just a little bit, but enough. Although I can’t know all the family was going through, it was painfully easy to put myself in their shoes. One of the bizarre things that happened when I became a parent was that I found myself playing out worst-case-scenarios in my head less and less about my own dramas, and started playing them out about my kid.

I only plugged in to this story a few weeks ago (because I don’t watch TV news and haven’t been reading the paper…or many blogs for that matter), a day or so after a marrow registry drive within walking distance of home. I told myself I’d go to the next convenient drive and get myself on the registry. I’m already an organ donor, why not this too?

Did you notice that word I used in the last paragraph? Convenient. It would only have been mildly inconvenient for me to drive out to Roseville or Marconi Ave. or one one of a number of places relatively close, but instead I had to wait until tomorrow, until one was so close I couldn’t really make an excuse anymore. (It’s even possible to get on the registry online.)

Or will I? I used to give blood regularly. Now, despite blood drives happening in my very building, and despite the fact that work will let me have time off to donate, I haven’t done it. My lame excuse, among others, is that I’m taking medication that might make me ineligible. Might. Have I bothered to check? No.

Getting a cheek swab, spending half an hour giving blood, heck, even donating marrow if it comes to that, are minor inconveniences compared to the major impact they could have on someone else’s life.

This child I have never met, and whose parents I wouldn’t know from perfect strangers, has reminded me that I’m not really a misanthrope and that, at the very least, I should be doing these few things — organ donor, marrow registry, blood donation — to set a good example for my son and to keep the balance in the karma bank high. God forbid, but there may come a time when one of us needs to depend on someone else who has already stepped up to the plate.

Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Bloodsource

Update 4/25/2007. Got swabbed at the Capitol during lunch. The Kotts were coming in as I was leaving. Amazing.