Honor Kenechi Udeze's Fight Against Leukemia by Joining the Marrow Donor Registry

On Friday, the Vikings announced that defensive end Kenechi Udeze would be on the reserve non- football illness list in 2008. Doctors diagnosed him with a form of acute leukemia in February.

The Vikings want him to focus on fighting his disease, and not worry about financial problems. I wish more employers could be so generous.

Udeze is expected to receive a bone marrow transplant soon. He's very fortunate his brother was a transplant match because only about 30% of patients find a related donor.

Though you can't directly help Udeze's fight against leukemia, you can honor it by joining the National Marrow Donor Registry. Normally, there is a cost to join the registry, but during the "Thanks Mom Campaign," from May 5-19, the charges to join the registry are waived for the first 10,000 online signups. You fill out the form, and then they send you a cheek swab kit by mail. Some irresponsible TV shows make it look like donating marrow is very painful process, but for most people it can be done in a procedure not much different than giving platelets.

The reason why I know all about this stuff was that my sister Deb was diagnosed with leukemia in October 2005. She had a bone marrow transplant in February 2006. The transplant is the only reason why she is alive today.

For those fans who want to know more about what Udeze is likely facing over the next year, I'm going share my sister's story and provide some basic medical facts. I know if a player on my favorite team was going through something like this, I'd want to know more about it.

About Leukemia and Transplants: For some cancers, you have some chemo, maybe an operation, and then you just live your life and hope for the best. Receiving a bone marrow transplant is going to be just the beginning of Udeze's fight against leukemia. The chemotherapy part of the treatment is often much easier than going through the transplant.

Leukemia is cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Anybody can get it at any time. Obviously, because you have blood in every part of your body, you can't cut this sort of cancer out like you can with some localized cancers. Leukemia affects your entire body.

So one way medical science learned to deal with this blood cancer is to do a transplant that creates a new blood and immune system in the body. If you want to read from actual doctors about this, check out this link.

After my sister's transplant, her blood changed from blood type (O+) to the donor's blood type (A-). Strangely, the blood elements to make a good bone marrow match have nothing to do with a blood type.

The reason why we don't know the exact date of when Udeze will receive his transplant is that the medical staff has to time it perfectly. The chemotherapy needs to put the leukemia in remission. In addition, sometimes they also do total body irradiation to prepare the body for the transplant. At the time the transplant is done, the body is very weak, so they want to make sure before the transplant that the person doesn't have any illnesses or infections.

During treatment for leukemia, everyone visiting the patient has to put on gowns, foot protection and masks. (The picture below is me attempting to entertain my sister in full garb). At the hospital my sister was at, you couldn't send her flowers or plants because of the risk of getting infections from those gifts.

For about 9 months, my sister Deb was unable to live with her daughter or anyone with children when she was out of the hospital because they didn't want my sister to get some germ that might be fatal.

Unlike what a lot of people think, the transplant is not an operation. They hang an IV bag up (the above bag is my brother's stem cells) that gives the patient the new blood stem cells. The cells go to the bone marrow cavity where slowly they start creating new cells and a new immune system.

A patient's 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.

Post-Transplant and How Blogging Can Save Your Life: After the transplant is over and the patient is released from the hospital, they have to go back to the hospital on almost a daily basis for monitoring. Nobody is even allowed a transplant unless they can guarantee they will 24-hour care for months after they are released from the hospital.

It's hard to say how Udeze will respond to the transplant because everyone's experience is different. Some people have few complications and some have many. The major risks from transplants is getting graft-versus-host (GVH) disease or contracting infections from having a compromised immune system. GVH disease is where the donated cells attack different parts of the body.

My sister blogged about her experience. She used to blog about just random stuff happening in her life. Then she started blogging about her diagnosis and treatment (warning some profanity) because she was stuck in the hospital, and it was a therapeutic way to keep in contact with people. Later she blogged about the transplant.

Eventually, her blog saved her life.

After her transplant, she contracted encephalitis but nobody knew it. At first the doctors thought she was depressed because she was not hungry, tired and irritable. We told the doctors she had to be sick and showed them her blog posts from the month before It showed someone who had an ongoing fever but was very positive, motivated and forward-focused. Heck, she was so inspirational that the Oprah show wanted to fly her out to Chicago.

Over the course of a few days, the encephalitis stole her ability to read, write, tell time, and even know where she was. I thought my sister was gone forever. Fortunately, because they were able to figure out what the problem was quickly, they gave her massive doses of medicine, and her brain came back.

Today, my sister is doing much better. She has good and bad days. She is still unable to work because of effects of GVH and because her immune system is still underdeveloped. She feels fortunate to be alive, as she has lost 30 friends to leukemia or transplant-related complications.

Okay, I know this rambling post isn't much about football. But I guess that is the point of it. Sportswriters ask Udeze about football, and at this point the NFL just represents hope, insurance and a one-year paycheck for him. He has a hard fight ahead with the upcoming transplant, and how his body will react to it. Thanks to the Vikings for continuing his salary because for many people, an acute leukemia diagnosis means fighting for your life without being able to work and no paycheck.

If you like to pray, please send some his way.

And, please consider joining the National Marrow Transplant Registry and/or providing them a donation to help get more people registered. There is nothing sadder than talking to someone who knows they or their child is likely going to die because they don't have a marrow match.

Please use the power of the interwebs for good and spread the word about such an easy way to save someone's life. There's an "Email This" link at the bottom of the post.