A Bone Marrow Transplant for Cathy

2007 Great Ride 'n' Stride

The bmt4cathy team will be participating in the New Hamburg Great Ride 'n' Stride this year on Sunday, April 29th, 2007.

We formed the bmt4cathy team in honour of Cathy and hope to increase awareness and encourage participation on a larger scale than we could with individual efforts alone. We would like you to join our team and come out to the Ride 'n' Stride. If you are unable to participate, please consider sponsoring us.

Please click on the links below to join the bmt4cathy team or to sponsor us by making a donation online to the Canadian Cancer Society. You'll get a tax receipt back by e-mail. E-mail me at chris@bmt4cathy.com if you have any questions or if you are not comfortable with donating online.

Please use the following link to join us or pledge/sponsor us:

Join, pledge/sponsor bmt4cathy team

Please note - the Canadian Cancer Society website does not directly support team registrations this year, so after you sign up, send me an email and I will add your name to the team roster. After the Ride, the total pledges from all team members will be pooled and they will let us know how much we raised.

Thanks for your support, and I hope to see you at the ride!

Chris Holder

Great Ride 'n' Stride 2006

The bmt4cathy team will be participating in the Great Ride 'n' Stride again this year on Sunday, April 30th, 2006.

We formed the bmt4cathy team in honour of Cathy and hope to increase awareness and encourage participation on a larger scale than we could with individual efforts alone. We would like you to join our team and come out to the Ride 'n' Stride. If you are unable to participate, please consider sponsoring us.

Please click on the link below to join the bmt4cathy team or to sponsor us by making a donation online to the Canadian Cancer Society. You'll get a tax receipt back by e-mail. E-mail me at chris@bmt4cathy.com if you have any questions or if you are not comfortable with donating online.

If you would like to join us or pledge us, you can do it online.

Please note - the Canadian Cancer Society website does not support team registrations this year, so after you sign up, send me an email and I will add your name to the team roster. After the Ride, the total pledges from all team members will be pooled and they will let us know how much we raised.

Thanks for your support, and I hope to see you at the ride!

Another Match!

Another Match! As announced, Carl Gansen, a Kettering University student who registered at the Bone Marrow Drive held at the school in November, is a match for a man suffering from AML. Carl spent the 6th and 7th of June donating his stem cells for a Bone Marrow Transfer to occur later that week. Carl is the first of three Kettering Students to be called as potential matches. More details are available on Kettering's website.

]]> Since then, two other Kettering students have been called for further testing to see if they too are matches for someone in need of a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. Cassie and Lacy Piippo were called on the same day, and are likely also matches for each other.

Due to the overwhelming response and success of the testing drive held last fall, another drive is planned for August 10th, 2005. The drive will be held in BJ's Lounge, from 11am to 6pm. We are hoping to beat the 217 student turn out from the fall drive.

Great Ride 'n' Stride

On April 24th our team participated in the 'Great Ride 'n' Stride' to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. In total our team raised $2,648.10! Thanks to everyone who participated, and to all our sponsors. Though the weather wasn't great, we had a great time walking and biking around the University of Waterloo ring road to complete our 5 and 20 km treks.

]]> Team members included many of Cathy's friends and family, as well as participants from Kettering University. Donations for the 'Ride 'n' Stride' were collected at Kettering from staff and students through efforts organized by the Office of Greek Life.

Great Ride 'n' Stride

You can help make cancer history by joining me at the Great Ride 'n' Stride.

Cancer touches everyone's life, and there is no cure. Cathy passed away October 31st, 2004 after a year long battle with leukemia, and a fight with breast cancer that began in 2001. We launched the www.bmt4cathy.com website last year in an attempt to encourage more people to join the Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry. It is our intention to continue that work.

The Great Ride 'n' Stride to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society is taking place April 24th, 2005. My daughter, Courtney, has been participating for the past 3 years and this year I am joining her. We have formed the "bmt4cathy" team this year in honour of Cathy and hope to increase awareness and encourage participation on a larger scale than we could with individual efforts alone. We would like you to join our team and come out to the Ride 'n' Stride. If you are unable to participate, please consider sponsoring us.

]]> Please click on the link below to join the bmt4cathy team or to sponsor us by making a donation online to the Canadian Cancer Society. You'll get a tax receipt back by e-mail. E-mail me at chris@bmt4cathy.com if you have any questions or if you are not comfortable with donating online.

https://secureccs.ca/grns/?inv=da4b2ad8-b039-4a68-92a1-7e6593f5c79b.

The www.bmt4cathy.com website will be updated in the coming weeks with information about the Great Ride 'n' Stride. You can also leave comments for us on the website.

Thanks for your support, and I hope to see you at the ride!

Chris Holder

Kettering Bone Marrow Drive Finds Match

One of the 217 student who participated in the Kettering Bone Marrow Drive last year has been identified as a match for an unrelated patient.

Congratulations to everyone who participated. Anyone could be the next match. Please register with your local Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry today.

Bone Marrow Donor Drive at Kettering University

B-Section students at Kettering University, in Flint Michigan, have organized a Bone Marrow Testing and Registration Drive, to be held November 3rd (5th Wednesday) from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm in BJ's Lounge.

Prospective donors are asked to sign up in the Great Court October 29 (4th Friday), November 1st (5th Monday) and November 2nd (5th Tuesday) at lunch time.

Drop-ins are welcome on Wednesday, but space is limited to the first 200 people.

Corriere Canadese

Corriere Canadese has published Cathy's story in Italian. Our thanks go out once again to Tandem News reporter mark Cirillo for a very well written and complete account of our situation.

Additional Information about Leukemia and Bone Marrow Transplants can be found on the Registro Italiano Donatori Midollo Osseo website.

A Busy Day

First, Our story was published in the Waterloo Chronicle, a local community paper, this morning.

Second, we went to Toronto and Cathy was on TV. Mario Salvagio (cousin Jenny's husband) went on the air with Cathy to help explain the situation in Italian. The host Vito Caressa was very good and made Cathy and Mario feel quite comfortable during the interview.

]]> Third, as we were leaving the studio, a guy walked by carrying several copies of Corriere Canadese. I said to Vito that I wanted to get a copy today, and was about to ask him where to buy one, when he called the guy (Enzo) and grabbed one for me. Later when we were sitting in the waiting area at Princess Margaret Hospital, I pulled out the paper and started looking at it. Of course, everything is in Italian......so I flipped the paper over and opened the back page, and just about fell off my chair. There was a great big picture of Cathy looking at me. The story written by the Tandem News reporter, Mark Cirillo, pretty much covered the whole back of the paper. I found a link to the story on the Corriere Canadese website (but no pictures).

Fourth, we had a very nice dinner at Tucker's, a restaurant in Toronto. A pretty amazing buffet. We may have to skip breakfast.

All in all, a very busy day.

Tandem News Picks Up Cathy's Story

Tandem News, an affiliate of Corriere Canadese, has published Cathy's story. It is online now at www.tandemnews.com. Tandem reporter Mark Cirillo was in contact with us for the past week researching the story and did an excellent job. He has taken a very complex situation and presented it in a very straight forward manner.

]]> Cathy and I would like to thank Mark and Tandem News for their support in reaching out to the Italian Community in and around Toronto.

Cathy's Story is Front Page News

The Record, our local newspaper, has published Cathy's story as Front Page News. The story is continued on Page Two. Friends of ours sent a personal message to a contact at the paper informing them of our situation. We received word last week that they "might" be interested in doing a short article and would let us know.

]]> Record reporter Carol Goodwin and photographer Mathew McCarthy visited Cathy in the hospital on Monday to get the details. It wasn't until the interview was finished that we found out that the story was slated to run on the front page. With a circulation of 70,000 and a coverage area that includes Waterloo Region, east to guelph, north past Hanover, and west to Lake Huron, we were overjoyed to know that so many people would be made aware of our situation and the need for Bone Marrow Donors in general.

The Search Continues

I have spoken with the Director of the Canadian Bone Marrow Donor Registry and with the Doctor responsible for transplant searches at Princess Margaret Hospital. They have both re-affirmed the importance of focussing our efforts along ethnic (or genetic) lines. With this in mind, we have increased our efforts to contact Italians throughout Canada and the United States.

]]> The message is spreading quite rapidly by word of mouth. many thanks to our friends and family who have helped us to start this process.

We now need help in locating and identifying Italian Cultural Organizations across North America (and throughout the world). If anyone can help with contact names and/or phone numbers, please email me the information. If you know who to talk to, please contact them directly yourself and explain the need to find a donor to them. Give them the link to this website and and ask them to contact me by leaving a comment. I try to check the site daily and will usually be able to respond quickly.

We are also working on spreading the word in Italy. A cousin in Rome is working on getting the message posted in the old home town, Ruvo del Monte.

The Registries in each country operate slightly differently, and we are working on understanding the requirements of each. Hopefully we will have some detailed information to post on the website soon.

I would like to remind everyone at this point that ANYONE could be the match we are looking for. Please don't get the impression that only Italians should register. The experts have told us that the best place for us to concentrate our efforts is in the Italian/Mediterannean ethnic community. They have also repeatedly told us that the match could come from anywhere.

Open Letter Re: Bone Marrow Transplant

My name is Chris Holder. My wife Cathy has leukemia and needs a Bone Marrow Transplant. She is a Canadian born daughter of Italian parents.

It is a fairly long story, but the bottom line is that currently there is not a matching donor registered with any organization anywhere in the world.

What I am asking for is to have everyone contact their local registry and sign up to become a Bone Marrow Donor.

]]> Additionally, I need help in getting this message out to the greater community. Please copy this letter and discuss it with friends and family. Take it to work and get it posted on bulletin boards. Publish it in community and corporate newsletters. Every person who registers could literally save someone's life.

Information about the process of joining your local Bone Marrow Donor Registry can be found on this website. The procedures for most of the registries in the world are very similar:

> Follow the link for What Can I Donate? - Bone Marrow Registry.
> Select "Joining The Registry" and complete the questionnaire.
> Sign and mail the questionnaire to the closest office.
> The Registry will contact you and verify your willingness to be in the registry.
> An appointment will be set up for you to have a blood sample drawn at a local lab.
> Go to the lab to have the blood sample drawn.

Once your sample has been analyzed, your information will be added to your local Registry. If you are a match for Cathy, or someone else, you will be contacted very quickly, probably within a week or two.