don’t take the match for granted
a lot of you have been asking how he’s doing. it’s weird, now that the book is out and everybody knows the deeper story. it’s not good or bad, it’s just weird. but so. i’m taking C. Anthony Martignetti into the hospital this morning for an all-day marathon. this week is a battery of tests and preparations and catheter-insertions and then, on friday, he’s being admitted – after a long wait – for his bone marrow transplant. for anyone who’s interesting in the grisly details: anthony’s got leukemia, a rare form (T-cell). since the chemo hasn’t managed to completely knock it out (the cancer keeps mutating and coming back to attack different parts of his body) – the bone marrow transplant is the next hope. all new blood. bone marrow is what makes your blood. if he has new blood, his blood will not contain cancer anymore. so, like a heart transplant or a liver transplant, they knock is immune system down to zero, and an angelic donor agrees to get hooked up to machines and give his marrow to anthony.
the donor is all set (and it’s good news there: the match is supposedly a REALLY good one) and then anthony”s supposed to be in the hospital for about 5 weeks. if all goes well. he loses his hair. he loses a lot of his body, more or less. all new blood. new beginnings. we wait and see if his body doesn’t reject the gift.
he’s going to need a lot of love, and i’m going to be gone for two weeks of it, in january, since i took the gig at MONA FOMA (in australia, in about a month) back when anthony’s transplant was scheduled for october. i figured he’d be in recovery by then. it’s making me worried, scared that i won’t be around if anything bad happens. but it is what it is. as soon as i have an address for him in the hospital, i’ll share it with you guys. you can write him bad poetry and stuff.
i love you all.
(and if you feel like doing something simple for humanity, join the bone marrow registry. if all of humanity joins, a lot of people have a better chance of survival when their blood goes bad.
US: http://www.bethematch.org/
UK: http://www.blood.co.uk/
it takes very little effort, and they mail you a simple saliva-swab to mail back to them. do it if you can.)
xxxx
