Bone Marrow Drive at UR for C.A.M Wagner is Dec. 17th

I continue to be amazed at how small Richmond is.  And how interconnected we all are.   And this is just one good reason to read the rest of this post.  C.A.M. Wagner needs your help. He has a very rare disease, Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasm, and needs a bone marrow transplant.  C.A.M and his wife are UR graduates.  Here are the details:

Wednesday, Dec. 17th from 5-9 pm, University of Richmond Jepson Alumni Center, Robins Pavilion 
Several upcoming drives are scheduled for the Virginia/Maryland area (details below). When you attend a drive in person, the cost to you to cover lab processing is $25. If the fee is a hardship, mention C.A.M. Wagner’s name, and a foundation set up by Becky’s family will cover the cost.

Here is a letter from C.A.M.’s friends Ed and Margaret Brown, asking for your support:

Most of you are aware of my dear friend’s battle against a rare and aggressive form of cancer of the bone marrow.  Doctors hope that a bone marrow transplant will be an effective treatment, but recently they have learned that C.A.M.’s closest blood relatives are unfortunately not a good match. The doctors and family are now looking for other donor sources and are especially interested in people with Jewish, Dutch, English and northern European descent. However, all are encouraged to be tested in hopes of benefiting C.A.M. or someone else in need of a bone marrow transplant. The test is a simple (painless!) cheek swab for those in good health between the ages of 18 – 60 years.
We have been able to pull together a Bone Marrow Drive scheduled for next Wednesday, 12/17(!), at the University of Richmond Jepson Alumni Center.  This drive, in C.A.M.’s honor, will benefit C.A.M. and the thousands of others in need of a match. 
Logistical details are included in the attached, and I am asking you to consider being tested (with absolutely NO pressure) or just spread the word. 
I know that evenings are tough and the time of year is even tougher.  The cheek swab taken for the test is SO quick and entirely painless.  Completing the medical consent form required to donate takes longer than the swab itself.  To make that easier, forms are being delivered to me tomorrow, and I will also make them available at the Alumni house starting Monday so they may be completed prior to the drive (unfortunately, these are not available online for scheduled drives).
If Wednesday night is a not a good time, I will be personally trained to accept consent forms and cheek swab kits after the event.  I will have extras and will collect these until the end of the year, at which time I will send them off to the NMDP lab for processing.  We are considering hosting an unofficial event to collect such kits if we have demand beyond Wednesday night.
Note that when you attend a drive in person, the cost to you to cover lab processing is $25, as opposed to the $52 incurred when registering online to donate.  If the fee is a hardship, mention C.A.M. Wagner’s name at the drive, and a foundation set up by the family of his wife, Becky, will cover the cost.
Finally, if you have questions about specifics involved in being a donor, please see the FAQs available on www.marrow.org.  Note that 70% of people who need a transplant will not find a match within their families and rely on the NMDP Registry to find a donor.  More than 6,000 people a day search the registry in hopes that a match will be found.  Only 8% of those donors who advance to second stage of Confirmatory Typing end up donating.  So many people have been affected by C.A.M.’s trial – we can do more to help save lives for people fighting cancer just like C.A.M.
Thanks for ALL of your support, encouragement, help, childcare, and especially prayers during this time.  If you would like to be inspired or just keep up with C.A.M.’s progress, check out www.caringbridge.com/visit/camwagner.