National Marrow Donor Program

My brother has chronic leukemia and since day one I have not been able to not think about it. It took me a while but I no longer look at him and see solely that but I worry constantly about how it has affected him. I fear a change for the worse and I fear a life of darkness since, afterall, he's the light of my life. I gave up the bottle for him when he was born and even at 3 years old I know I wouldn't have done that for just anyone.

So, today, after a friend of mine got the call, after signing up 10 years ago, I registered with the National Marrow Donor Program in order to become a bone marrow donor. My brother doesn't need it, not now and hopefully not ever, but that awful day in February 2009, before the diagnosis went from AML to CML, I was prepared to give anything for him down to my own life (still am). However, I would hope that if I couldn't, perhaps someone else could have. This is why I registered, with the complete blessing of my brother, in the hopes that someone will not lose the light of their own lives.

I adore this picture. While the city was scrambling to prepare for Hurricane Ike, B and I went to the Astros game. It was September 11th and a returning soldier surprised his family and I cried. One of our friends, sitting to my right, caught a foul ball. BOO! It was a good time, a few months before shit got really real.