One of the hazards of getting in touch with old friends is finding out that scary things are happening in their lives.

Haley is the younger sister of a guy named Paul who was one of my closest friends as a child.  Paul and Haley's dad introduced my mom to my dad, and their parents stayed with me while my mom was in the hospital giving birth to my sister.  Paul's uncle owned the land next to my grandparents' house, and since I was shipped off to stay with my grandparents for months every summer, we spent a lot of time together.  Paul and Haley are both good people.  I remember Haley as a kid as a little blonde angel with a huge smile.  I'm sure Paul could share some different memories of a pesty baby sister. 

I just found out that Haley's husband Thomas has had a rather rough time of it - he has been battling cancer since he was 14 and recently underwent a bone marrow transplant through the NIH.  The NIH covered the expense of the transplant, and so they didn't go through their high-risk health insurance for approval.  As a result, their health insurance is refusing to cover any of their aftercare and so Haley and Thomas are stuck footing the bill for $500 worth of medications every week. 

Haley and Thomas are in desperate need of financial help, and are also asking for people to sign up for the bone marrow donor registry.  Because Thomas is a patient, the fee to join the registry will be waived if you enter promo code THR0210.

Even if you don't feel like throwing cash at people you don't know, please sign up for the marrow registry.  You don't have to have holes poked in you to sign up, it just takes a cheek swab.  Odds are you won't even match and so you can feel all charitable and do-gooder without having to actually do anything.  And if you do match and end up donating your marrow, I'm sure we can think of some sort of blog reward - maybe alex will even send you a pic.

Posted by: Alice H at 07:00 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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