MVN - Most Valuable Network

Honor Kenechi Udeze, and Perhaps Even Save a Life

Very moving story from Stephanie Stradley of AOL’s FanHouse. Her sister was diagnosed with leukemia in October 2005, so Stephanie is able to offer some insights into Kenechi Udeze’s path to recovery:

A patient’s [bone marrow] transplant day is often called their birthday. It’s like being a newborn because the patient has little immune system. Eventually, when the patient gets off of anti-rejection drugs, they have to get all their childhood immunization shots all over again

I can tell you that it is hard for me to fathom how someone even thought up how transplants could save people. It was about the most brutal thing I’ve witnessed in my life. My sister was unable to eat or drink for about a month and a half. For a while, she couldn’t even swallow her own spit because she had such bad mouth and throat sores.

In other words, a bone marrow transplant is a big deal. It’s not an operation, but it is one of the more difficult things medical science does to the human body.

For the complete story, click the link above. I’d highly recommend reading the article, as it gives glimpses of what Kenechi will be facing in the months ahead.

You can help make a difference in the effort to find marrow donors. At the National Marrow Donor Program’s website, there are opportunities to register as a donor or donate money to help them get more people registered. I’m donating a few bucks to the cause — it seems like an appropriate way to recognize the battle #95 is facing.

If you decide to help out with this cause, you’re welcome to post a comment here so we can keep tabs on how many Vikings fans (or fans of other teams, for that matter) have donated to the NMDP.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.